NEW YORK (AP) – A lawyer for an off-duty New Jersey police officer charged with driving drunk said Thursday his client may have been drugged at a strip club before a wrong-way crash in New York City that killed two passengers.
Attorney Mario Gallucci told a judge that an expert he hired “found some medical evidence that could be interpreted to mean” suspended Linden police Officer Pedro Abad was given the date-rape drug known as GHB before the March crash on Staten Island.
He asked Judge Stephen Rooney if he could get Abad’s blood sample to be tested. Assistant District Attorney Mark Palladino said he would find out if a sample is available.
A phone message left with the strip club by The Associated Press wasn’t immediately returned.
Gallucci told Rooney that it is becoming common for strip clubs to offer GHB, which is short for gamma hydroxybutyrate, to men to try to get them to spend more money. He said he is representing another client who said he was drugged and involved in a crash on the same highway.