Sailor Accused of Perjury in DWI Trial

New York – Petty Officer First Class Leonel Polanco-Colon is accused of lying during his trial last year on drunken-driving charges.

Polano-Col on was arrested while sitting in a run ning car with a BAC that was above the legal limit. At the time he offered an explanation that was backed by a friend and which the jury could believe. He told the jury that he was in the car only to charge his phone. His friend who was the designated driver was inside. That friend, Luis D. Nunez, also told the same story to the jury. The jury found Polanco-Colon not guilty of driving while intoxicated.

However on Monday, both men were charged with perjury which is a felony. Prosecutors say that Mr. Nunez was not even with Petty Officer Polanco-Colon that night, and that they had invented the designated-driver defense.

The lawyer for Polanco-Colon in the new case, said his client got bad legal advice during the DWI trial. “This is a situation where my client got terrible, terrible advice and followed it,” Mr. Parlatore said outside court. “But he is doing everything he can now to rectify that situation.”

The previous lawyer was not mentioned in the indictment but identified as “Attorney Doe,” and puts him as the mastermind behind the plans to concoct false testimony. The indictment says that after Petty Officer Polanco-Colon’s testimony varied from the plan, he met with Mr. Nunez and the lawyer that night “to ensure that Mr. Nunez would alter his anticipated testimony” to match what the defendant had told the jury.

Although the previous lawyer has not been charged, given the details of the case, criminal charges or professional disciplinary charges are possible.

Petty Officer Polanco-Colon, 32, appeared briefly at State Supreme Court in Manhattan wearing a dark suit. He pleaded not guilty to eight counts of perjury, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of up to seven years in prison, and was released without bail.

“Honest testimony is the bedrock of our legal system,” Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, said in a statement. “The cover-up is, in this case, more serious than the crime.”

Petty Officer Polanco-Colon’s acquittal on the drunken-driving charge means that he cannot be retried on that offense, which carried a maximum of a year in jail.