West Babylon, NY - September 27, 2016 - A West Babylon man will serve up to four and one-half years in prison after pleading guilty to leaving the scene of a fatal crash, Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said. 

Christopher Bacayon struck Michael Dora, 40, as Dora crossed Great East Neck Road in his wheelchair on the night of October 16 last year.  During his plea before State Supreme Court Justice Fernando Camacho last July, Bacayon said he left a Route 110 nightclub and while driving home, he hit what he knew to be a person and that he knew, based on the nature of the impact, that he had likely killed someone.

Black box data showed Bacayon was traveling at 60 mph in his 2011 Infinity G37 when he struck and killed Dora. 

In a written victim impact statement filed with the court, the victim’s mother said her son, despite his disability, took care of her by doing her shopping and cooking and making sure she took her medication.   She wrote her son’s death turned her world “upside down” and that she still wonders why the defendant “didn’t have the decency to stop and call for help”.  

The district attorney’s office recommended Bacayon, 36, be sentenced to the maximum sentence of two and one-third to seven years imprisonment.