Column: Driver in fatal accident drank at tribal casino

Wednesday, April 29, 2009  

"Christopher Brulotte, the 25-year-old construction worker accused of causing a fatal accident April 5 on Interstate 395, sweeping another car off the highway after hitting it from behind at a high rate of speed, was apparently spectacularly drunk.

His blood alcohol levels were .228 and .220, according to police tests, nearly three times the legal limit.

He was so drunk, someone who saw him after the accident told me, that it is hard to imagine how anyone could have continued to serve him alcohol that night. And yet they did.

Brulotte was on his way from Mohegan Sun the night of the accident, his lawyer, Ron Stevens of East Lyme, confirmed this week. He had been drinking at a restaurant there and then on the casino gaming floor, others say.

Brulotte was the second person in less than a month charged with drunken driving in a fatal accident who had last been drinking at Mohegan Sun before driving. A 23-year-old Connecticut College student was killed March 7 by a wrong-way driver police say had also been drinking at the Sun.

Two fatal accidents in a month attributed to drunken drivers served at the same place is a damning record, one that apparently has been a loud call to action."

Get the Story:
David Collins: Driver in Fatal Was Drinking at Casino (The New London Day 4/29)