Truck Driver Who Killed Wantagh Police Officer Avoids Jail Time

Story by Andrew Coen.

A Connecticut truck driver who was accused of falling asleep at the wheel before striking and killing a Nassau County Police officer from Wantagh in February 2011, will avoid jail time after pleading guilty to lesser charge Thursday.

John Kaley, 27, of New Britain, Conn. had been charged with criminally negligent homicide for crashing his tow truck into Michael Califano while he was conducting a routine traffic stop along the Long Island Expressway in Old Westbury on Feb. 4, 2011.

On Thursday a little more than two years after the incident, Judge William O'Brien dismissed the criminally negligent homicide charge and Kaley pleaded guilty instead to reckless driving, according to Nassau County District Attorney's office spokesman Chris Munzing. He will not face jail time with his new misdemeanor charge but did have his license revoked.

Califano was a 12-year veteran of the Nassau County Police Department before his tragic death. He left behind his wife, Jackie, and three small children, Michael, Christopher and Andrew.

Inside the Nassau County Courthouse in Mineola where Kaley's plea deal was announced, prosecutor Maureen McCormick read a prepared statement from Jackie Califano.

From Newsday:

"There have been so many sleepless nights, and two years later there continues to be," McCormick read as Califano's widow draped an arm around the two youngest boys. "How am I going to raise three boys alone?"