Crime & Safety

Suspect Testifies in Fatal Williston Park Hit-and-Run Trial

Raymond Kalenka takes stand in defense of death of Albertson resident Dean LaLima.

Accused hit-and-run suspect Raymond Kalenka was portrayed as an unfeeling, uncaring driver who “chose” to ignore the sound of Dean LaLima’s body being crushed under his Mercedes-Benz according to prosecutors Monday afternoon at the Nassau County Courthouse in Mineola.

Kalenka, 46, of Williston Park, took the stand in his own defense at his grand jury trial that he allegedly ran over LaLima near the intersection of Syracuse Street and Broad Street in the early a.m. hours of Aug. 12, 2012. LaLima, of Albertson, was the manager of Garden City-based Grimaldi’s Pizza.

According to Kalenka’s direct testimony, he had spent August 11 in Denver, CO on business for his employer, Melville-based Arrow Electronics, where he is the assistant corporate comptroller. The next day he was at his Yale Street home, but spent the evening at his parents’ home on Park Avenue since he was going through divorce proceedings. After dinner he and his parents watched television until about 9 p.m. when his mother and father then went to bed.

“I was considering spending the night,” Kalenka said on the stand, noting that he had decided to go home to pick up a shirt and his shaving toiletries. While driving home, Kalenka said that he had condensation appearing on his windshield due to having the air conditioning turned on as he was traveling home and it was dark as he approached Syracuse Street and he did not see any pedestrian at the location.

“(I) felt my car go over something, it felt like a speedbump,” he said, late gesturing and indicating that he felt his wheels lift upwards. “I thought it might be a piece of debris in the road. I looked back in my rearview mirror, but again it was dark.”

Prosecutor Katie Zizza questioned Kalenka if he would have stopped had he felt something larger than a speedbump, noting LaLima’s body weighed about 185 lbs. and that LaLima’s skull and pelvic bones were crushed under the wheels of the car as it drove over him. She further asked Kalenka how many times that he had driven on the street both in north and south.

“Hundreds, maybe thousands,” Kalenka said, also admitting rolling through several area stop signs that same night. “There are no speedbumps on Broad Street. It was unusual.”

After he arrived at his Yale Street home and retrieved his items, Kalenka stated that the car made a “scraping noise” after leaving the driveway. While inspecting his forward tires as the car was parked in the middle of the street, Kalenka’s neighbor Christopher Post pulled up after returning home from Dunkin’ Donuts in Mineola.

“It appeared he was tugging on or (reaching into) the wheel well,” Post said, noting that Kalenka appeared to have some sort of material in his hand. “I could see that he was struggling with something. He was shocked; he looked like he saw a ghost.”

Prosecutors say that Kalenka removed a section of the inner wheel well lining that was damaged in the incident, leading to an evidence tampering charge but Kalenka stated in testimony that he could not see anything in the wheel well and the noise stopped after he then drove over Willis Avenue and onto Charles Street, noticing on Sunday that the piece of plastic was missing and that he could see that the car’s windshield wiper reservoir “was exposed.” He stated that he did not tamper with the vehicle or have it cleaned.

When reports came out on Sunday, August 12 that a fatal hit-and-run occurred, Kalenka said that it did not register with him that the impact he felt was that of a human body, indicating that he had heard reports that it was a person on a bicycle or may have been a gang-related incident.

In her cross examination questioning, Zizza said that Kalenka “chose” to drive down Syracuse Street instead of Broad Street, where LaLima’s body would still have been lying in the street and potentially would have been seen.

“That’s the way I typically go to my parent’s house,” Kalenka said of taking the Syracuse Street route.

A female member of a party of LaLima’s supporters stormed out of the courtroom upon Zizza’s cross-examination of Kalenka and his responses regarding his analogy that the impact he felt was akin to a speedbump or pothole.

“It is your testimony that you’re not feeling this at all,” Zizza said. “(That you) don’t feel your tires crushing a human body. You drove away.”

“Yes,” Kalenka said.

Closing arguments in the case are scheduled for Tuesday morning after which Judge Jerald S. Carter would issue a verdict in the case at an unknown point in the future and hand down a sentence. Kalenka has been out of jail on $25,000 bail since August 2012. He is charged with leaving the scene of an accident with death.


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