Ex-Trooper Lied When Testifying In Bay Shore DWI Arrest Case: DA

CENTRAL ISLIP, NY — A former New York state trooper pleaded guilty on Tuesday for committing perjury in connection to a DWI arrest in Bay Shore in 2017, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Timothy Sini.

Kevin Tunney, 34, of Kings Park, was charged with first-degree perjury, the DA said.

Tunney, who joined the New York State Police in 2014, resigned from the department on Friday as part of the plea agreement, the DA said.

In 2017, Tunney arrested a person in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven on Bay Shore Road in Bay Shore and charged them with DWI, aggravated DWI, and failure to maintain lane, according to the DA.

In the arrest paperwork, Tunney stated that he was driving his police car on Bay Shore Road when he saw the individual’s car driving directly in front of him and swerve over the center double yellow line in the road twice before it abruptly made a right turn into an exit-only driveway of the parking lot, the DA said.

In his testimony during the pretrial hearing in 2019, Tunney recounted the same observations of the individual’s vehicle from the night of the arrest, according to Sini.

However, the DA reviewed surveillance footage from the 7-Eleven on the night of the arrest, which showed that Tunney was inside the store when the individual arrived, Sini stated.

After reviewing the video, the DA found that Tunney could not have followed the individual on Bay Shore Road or seen him failing to maintain his lane while driving — as he stated in his testimony and arrest paperwork, according to Sini.

The footage also showed that the individual had entered the parking lot through the appropriate entranceway, not through an exit-only driveway as Tunney testified, the DA said.

After a thorough investigation, which included eyewitness interviews and a review of GPS records and other relevant evidence, the grand jury returned the charges set forth in the indictment, Sini said.

As a result of this investigation, the case against the individual who had been charged with DWI was dismissed, Sini said.

"Any time a police officer breaks the laws that he is sworn to uphold, it undermines the integrity of the entire criminal justice system," Sini said. "At its core, law enforcement’s job is to seek the truth in each case and to determine just outcomes based solely upon the evidence. That was not done here."

The District Attorney’s Office also conducted a review of all its previous prosecutions in which Tunney was a witness or potential witness and found no evidence of additional misconduct, Sini said.

He is scheduled to be sentenced by Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei on June 28.