Gay smirk
Fun fact: he cleaned up some of the glass from the windshield, put it in a bookbag and left it in his closet before running.
Fun fact No. 2: His passport was revoked posthaste by Homeland Securty.
Fun fact No. 3: It’s unclear whether his attorney is a better person.
Before I get into the hearing itself, an update on Foltz:
He’s said to have had a double craniotomy; I’m no doctor, but I know it’s the same procedure I had to alleviate brain swelling and give me a chance at survival. (It worked for me. Obviously.)
Seems as if he’s in a similar hoverground between alert and comatose (which is when I presume I had some of those crazy dreams, specifically one about a Thanksgiving football game with the cast of Friday Night Lights. It’s not eerie there. It’s trippy.)
Doctors told the family he’s expected to survive, but to be ready for anything. He still needs the brain-flap reinsertion surgery, which’ll save him from life with a helmet to protect a head that looks structurally mohawked.
I’m pulling for him to get all the same breaks that I got to be sitting here some 17 months after my hit-and-run. But I digress, since I want to get back to asshole Andrew Gay Jr., who passed out a yellow notebook, presumably to get contact info for the 18 people who were there in support of Hasselback (who wasn’t there) and Hasselback’s parents (who were).
Best I can describe it, the room had a Greasers vs. Soshes feel, if Pony Boy had run Cherry Vallence’s boyfriend over in the Outsiders. I hate to use the term, but Hasselback’s college friends had a hipster-y feel while those there in support of victim Foltz, including assistant law school deans, had a near-Ivy vibe. But that’s just overgeneralizations, so take it for what it’s worth. Both sides had a right — nay, obligation — to turn out. If Nick was one of my friends, I’d have gone too.
It was Case No. 13, fittingly. Started at 11:01 a.m. And, quite frankly, despite Gay’s for-hire rhetoric it went exactly as I thought it should: Give both sides a chance to talk about an incident in which a kid, driving at 2:30 a.m., took off after running someone over, then took off “out of Dodge” (as ADA Lynne O’Brien succinctly put it). Let defense attorney try to prove the two-time fleer isn’t a flight risk, so he should be let out of jail pre-trial. Shoot it down as absurd.
But Gay’s arrogance to reality was just fucking stunning. I’d encourage anybody worried about karmic repercussions to not hire him as your counsellor. Even if his whole Nick-and-family are praying for Foltz’s recovery might have been true, he wasted no time at all in proving that some lawyers are governed not by justice, but finding anything that might get a guilty client out of jail. That’s not what this country was founded to be about, no matter how many attorneys tell me that’s how to play the game.
Some choice quotes from douchebag:
“No indication [Nick would] flee this jurisdiction.” Even though he did earlier this month.
“He will respond to charges and appear at each listing.” Except this one, apparently.
“Physical evidence found at the scene and his residence” weren’t tampered with. As if that proves that the kid was planning to come clean even as he accelerated away from what could have been a dead body. That T-shirt with glass shards all over it should come in handy should Andy-Poo try to concoct a “he wasn’t there at all” defense. Not saying he will, though. Because he can’t. This was a plea-bound case even before it happened.
“He left his passport behind in the apartment” when he ran away from responsibility. As if that means that Nicky’s a stand-up guy or something. Methinks there are a few places to hide without leaving the country.
“If we all could turn back the wheels of time, we’d change the course of events.” He was talking about the accident, presumably. But it just as well could have meant Nick might’ve kept running.
At which point O’Brien laid out the reality of the situation: He ran. That means he’s a threat to run again. Little matter that the Owl crew was raising money to get him out of jail; you think that’s really going to stop him from fleeing again should Foltz die? “He’s already shown a (penchant) to run when his back’s against the wall.” There was talk about fleeing the country already, since he initially “thought he killed him.”
“Looking out for No. 1,” is how O’Brien put it a couple times. “He left Tony there bleeding, left him to die.”
Listen, I’m able to understand why people run. Panic. Self-preservation. Et cetera. But I’ve been where Tony is right now: Condition critical. Outcome not-yet-determined. But what I’ll never understand is how a prick lawyer can live with himself, if self is willing to say absolutely anything and chalk it up to “just doing my job.” Like Gay, who not only claimed that Hasselback scurried off to Ephrata so his family could join him on a trip back to Philly to turn himself in. Oh no, gets better:
“That a 22-year-old college kid has a knee-jerk reaction is what we’d expect out of any 22-year-old.”
Translation: Any college student would run from taking responsibility from something that might have left an innocent person dead. The judge, his hair stood up to the point that Gay corrected himself to say, “That’s what this 22-year-old college kid chose to do.”
Damage was done. It was a sign that Gay was belittling the incident itself. So was how he got all squeaky in saying a $500K bail was fair for a shooting, but not what’s nothing short of murder by vehicle, whether pre-meditated or not.
(Palumbo did the right thing, saying to Gay, “Nothing I can do to help you.” Bail’s still $500K, as well it should be.)
The only thing I can say to all that is, “Fuck you, Andrew Gay Jr. You are the dregs of the moral earth. Even if you don’t believe what you’re saying, to even say these things is beyond ignorance. Karmically, I’d look both ways before you even cross the sidewalk.”
Sorry if this ramble-y. But I’m totally pissed off, and can’t let this mental aggression stand.
In closing, if you’d like to drop Andrew Gay Jr. a line, his office number’s (215) 545-7110 and email is AGGJR@AGGJR.com.
Brian- Thanks so much for following this case. Your recovery from a similar head injury is a source of hope for an an anguished family. And your outrage at this incident is also very much appreciated. Please stay with Tony’s story as long as possible.
That means a lot, CM.
I’d like to think I’d be just as angered by it hadn’t I been hit myself, but I didn’t really notice how pervasive hit-and-runs were until after I got up from that hospital bed. (Which, as I told his sister yesterday, I have faith that Tony will do as well.)
Hey bud watch what you fucking say about my family. You’ll be lucky if you walk away from this one without getting sued for libel. Serious. Idiot.