Staff Reports
The Journal-Register
BARRE —
An Orleans County man who pleaded guilty in June to criminally negligent homicide in his daughter’s death was sentenced Monday to serve six months in jail.
Corey Buzard, 33, was charged in connection to a September 2009 vehicle accident that claimed the life of his 8-year-old daughter, Abbagail, even though he wasn’t the driver.
According to reports, Corey Buzard had been drinking at a family gathering the night of the fatal accident and convinced his cousin, Courteny Buzard, 17, of Brockport — who only had a learner’s permit — to drive him to the store.
Abbagail Buzard was a back-seat passenger in the 1998 GMC Jimmy when the vehicle went off of Oak Orchard Road in the Town of Barre at about 10 p.m. The vehicle rolled over multiple times before traveling down an embankment and landing in an irrigation ditch. Abbagail Buzard was ejected from the vehicle and pinned beneath the wreckage.
She was taken to United Memorial Medical Center in Batavia, where she was pronounced dead, according to prior reports.
Police said Abbagail was not properly restrained.
According to the district attorney’s office, Buzard was sentenced to six months in Orleans County Jail and five years probation by Judge James Punch on Monday in county court.
This is the first case of its kind in New York state, as no other passenger has ever been held responsible in the case of a fatal accident, and it is the basis for a new law.
According to the state Senate, Abbagail’s law would prohibit supervising drivers from acting under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and would subject them to criminal charges.
