EVANS, N.Y. (WKBW) — A Buffalo man who was involved in a 2015 Thruway wreck is in trouble with the law once again. This time, he's accused of driving with a blood alcohol level four times the legal limit.
On Monday, State Police got a report of an erratic driver on the I-90 in the town of Evans. Troopers say they found the vehicle and conducted a traffic stop in the Angola Service Area.
"Once they made contact and started interviewing him, they noticed multiple open alcohol cans in the vehicle," said New York State Trooper James O'Callaghan.
Investigators say the driver, 37-year-old Kiran Thapa, was driving with a suspended license and blew a BAC of .32%.
If you think you've heard the name Kiran Thapa before, you're right.
In 2015, Thapa was identified as the driver who was caught on camera cutting his Chevy Camaro onto the shoulder of I-90 in an attempt to pass a pickup truck, but losing control and slamming into the truck, which gets shoved into a tractor trailer.
He was then arrested by Orchard Park Police in April of 2019. At the time police say Thapa had a BAC of .26 percent which is more than three times the legal limit.
"This person has obviously not learned anything from his prior convictions and arrests and he's gone to repeat this behavior. He's a danger to society," said former New York State Supreme Court Justice Penny Wolfgang.
Wolfgang says in cases like these, it doesn't matter what conditions the court puts on if they're ignored by the repeat offender. She also adds bail reform lets someone like Thapa go.
"Now we have a situation where under the new law, we cannot consider the repeat offender, we cannot consider the prior record, we can't decide if this person should be held with no bail, we have to let them go," she said.
Thapa is due back in court to face this latest charge on March 9.
