Haney takes stand in her own defense in manslaughter trial UPDATE 5:30 PM In what was the 8th day of a manslaughter trial, involving former Texas City Commissioner Dee Ann Haney, Haney took the stand in her own defense. Haney faces two manslaughter charges after a July 3, 2017 crash on a connector road to the northbound lanes of George and Cynthia Mitchell Galveston Causeway. Van Duoc Le, 58, and his son Hong Phuc Le, 33, were both hit and killed. Wednesday (2/14/2024) afternoon, Haney took the stand in her own defense. Her attorney, Kevin Rekoff asked her about what she saw as the crash happened. She said she saw a passenger truck to the left of her, as she was coming up the connector road to the causeway. She claimed to have seen one person standing on top of the fog line, in the lane of traffic. That person was Hong Phuc Le. She said she reacted as fast as she could, and swerved right. “It happened so fast,” Haney said. She knew she hit a man, along with the truck. “I ran over something. I felt it go under the truck.” However, Haney did not know 2 people were dead. She claimed Tommy Nguyen, the driver of the Tacoma, approached her after she got out the truck and yelled at her saying that she was drunk and killed his family. She responded “Im not drunk and I didn’t try to leave.” Haney said she didn’t interact anymore with Nguyen until police arrived, which took 3-4 minutes for them to do so. Earlier in the afternoon, Tommy Nguyen, Brother-in-law to Van Duoc Le and Uncle to Hong Phuc Le, was recalled to the stand. He was asked about the crash and his state of mind. “Luckily it [his truck] didn’t flip or I would have been killed too.” Prosecutors asked, “did you ever see them step into the lane of traffic?” to which Nguyen said “No.” Their goal was to get it strapped down quickly and head out. He said he saw headlights, looked back to completing the job - as he didn’t think Haney was headed their direction - and almost instantly felt a bang and saw his family members out of the corner of his eye, go flying. The trial broke for the day at 5:30 PM. The trial will resume with Haney on the stand Thursday (2/15/2024) at 9 AM.

Posted by i45NOW Joey at 2024-02-14 20:15:03 UTC