by Mike Schnitzel
Acting Nassau County Supreme Court Justice Alan Honorof has asked for an expert witness to testify on the admissibility of the phone calls Heidgen made from jail. ³I am interested in whether or not he had an expectation of privacy,² said Honorof. A date for that hearing had not been set as of press time.
At a hearing at the Supreme Court on Monday, prosecutor Robert Hayden said that a subpoena for the tapes should be granted because the D.A.¹s office feels they may contain evidence critical to the case.
Defense attorney Stephen La Magna of Garden City called the motion a ³fishing expedition² and said that the call monitoring was warrantless and an invasion of Heidgen¹s privacy. He also said that ³merely articulating that there is the potential of relevant evidence is not enough [for a subpoena]. The prosecution must say what they are looking for specifically.²
A motion made by the prosecution to open up all of Heidgen¹s medical records was denied by Honorof. If the defense were to bring up aspects of Heidgen¹s medical records in support of its case, Honorof said, the prosecution¹s request for a subpoena could be revisited. Hayden had contended that when an expert testified on the constitutionality of the method by which blood was drawn from Heidgen, the defense had waived its right to medical privacy.
Heidgen, 25, allegedly drove a pickup truck that was traveling north in the southbound lanes of the Meadowbrook when it crashed head-on into a limousine, killing 7-year-old Katie Flynn, a Long Beach Catholic Regional School student, and driver Stanley Rabinowitz, 59, of Farmingdale.
Heidgen¹s blood alcohol level was recorded as .28 at the crash scene, more than three times the legal limit. He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and several other lesser counts.
Comments about this story? MSchnitzel@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 265.
