Albany County District Attorney Lee C. Kindlon announced today that a jury of eight women and four men found Austin Breyette guilty of assaulting a female college student with his dirt bike and then discarding evidence so he could evade police.
After a seven-day trial and a little more than three hours of deliberation, the jury returned a guilty verdict at 4 p.m. Thursday in the Honorable William Little’s courtroom on four charges – Assault in the Second Degree, Leaving the Scene of an Incident Without Reporting, Tampering with Physical Evidence (dirt bike), Tampering with Physical Evidence (Porsche – the getaway car).
Assistant District Attorney Collin D’Arcy, Bureau Chief of the Vehicular Crimes Unit, and Assistant District Attorney Joseph Brucato, Bureau Chief of the Major Crimes Unit, called on 28 witnesses and relied on surveillance video footage that showed Breyette riding a dirt bike and speeding through the streets of the Pine Hills neighborhood with friends.
He drove the wrong way on Hudson Avenue before he made a U-turn and ripped up the street at speeds up to 50 mph. He encountered a group of University at Albany students standing near parked cars and struck Alexa Kropf. The then 19-year-old from Long Island spent weeks in a coma and endured eight surgeries, having testified that she remembers nothing from that night.
After the crash, Breyette is then tracked by Albany Police speeding across the city to a spot on First Street, where he left his bike and then drove his Porsche to his home in Watervliet. The next day, Breyette brought the bike to Poughkeepsie to an unknown location and disposed of other evidence. He scrubbed all of his social media accounts and later sold his Porsche.
“I applaud all the hard work that ADAs D’Arcy and Brucato put into this case over the last 19 months to secure a guilty verdict that sends a message that reckless behavior with a dirt bike on our streets is a recipe for disaster,” DA Kindlon said. “This prosecution is a crackdown on that kind of behavior and hopefully puts an end to this once and for all. I also want to commend the courage and strength of Alexa, who has fought back from a near-death experience and is living her life as a young college student eager to learn, eager to turn the page.”
Breyette, who was remanded to the custody of the Albany County Correctional Facility, faces up to 19 years in prison when he is sentenced on Dec. 18.
