Court-martial begins for sailor acquitted in civilian court
By Bill Sizemore
The Virginian-Pilot
© September 27, 2012
NORFOLK
Ryan Petrosky was a little taken aback when a stranger offered him and his friends a ride home after
a night out at a bar - but they couldn't find a cab, so they took him up on it.
As the 2006 BMW pulled away from Red Dog Saloon in the Ghent neighborhood around 2 a.m. on
July 25, 2009, the mood was low key, Petrosky testified Wednesday. But by the time the car was
northbound on Granby Street, he was becoming concerned.
The sailor behind the wheel, Petty Officer 2nd Class Richard Freeman,began driving aggressively,
Petrosky said, swerving from lane to lane, passing other cars, going faster and faster. As the car
approached Bon Secours DePaul Medical Center, he said, it was going "extremely fast." Sensing an
accident was imminent, Petrosky instinctively tensed up, bracing for the impact.
The last thing he remembers, he said, was the car going over the curb of the median strip with a
thud.
When Petrosky came to, he was covered in blood. He had bruises, scrapes and cuts. His clothes
were torn. He had no idea where he was.
Five blocks away, the BMW was a smashed, twisted pile of metal. It had slammed into a tree and
burst into flames.
Of the five occupants in the car, two were dead: Cameron Richardson, 25, a sailor from Virginia
Beach, and Lauren Kok, 22, a nurse who was visiting from New York. Another sailor, Thomas
Jaskel, Kok's boyfriend, was paralyzed and suffered brain damage. Freeman and Petrosky escaped
with minor injuries.
To this day, Petrosky said, he doesn't know how he got out of the car.
In a rare legal proceeding at Norfolk Naval Station, Freeman is being court-martialed on charges of
drunken and reckless driving and negligent homicide - after having been acquitted of similar charges
last year in civilian court.
He deserves punishment, Navy Lt. Courtney Lewis, one of the prosecutors, told a five-member
military jury in her opening argument.
"He killed Cameron Richardson. He killed Lauren Kok. He ruined Tom Jaskel's life," she said. "Hold
him accountable for what he did."
Lewis said evidence will show that Freeman's blood alcohol content was above the state limit for
drunken driving.
Freeman's civilian defense attorney, Michael Fasanaro, said the defense will contest the bloodalcohol evidence, arguing that Freeman's blood sample could have been contaminated in a break in
the chain of custody.
He also said Freeman was distracted by "frolicking and noise in the back seat." Freeman told police
after the accident that one of his passengers hit him in the back of the head.
"This is going to be a very, very emotional case," Fasanaro said, urging the jurors to base their
decision on facts, not emotions.
Family members of the crash victims, some dabbing their eyes, listened intently to the testimony.
Erin Currie, who was driving a group of friends home from the same bar that night, testified that she
was shocked by Freeman's speed as he passed her on Granby Street. She said she was driving
around the speed limit, 35 mph, and estimated that the BMW was going at least twice that fast.
Albert Williams was driving a Hampton Roads Transit bus southbound on Granby Street. He heard
tires squealing, saw the BMW's approaching headlights and thought to himself, "This guy's going to
hit my bus."
When the car hit the tree, "it sounded like somebody had thrown a grenade," Williams said.
Fragments of the BMW hurtled across the median and shattered the windshield of the bus.
Two Norfolk emergency medical technicians who treated Freeman at the scene testified that they
smelled alcohol on his breath.
The trial is expected to last through next week.
Freeman, a cryptological technician assigned to the cruiser Vella Gulf, faces up to 10-1/2 years in
prison if convicted on all the charges.
Bill Sizemore, 757-446-2276, bill.sizemore@pilotonline.com
Driver in fatal 2009 DUI crash found not guilty
By Louis Hansen
The Virginian-Pilot
© June 29, 2011
NORFOLK
After an emotional weeklong trial, a jury acquitted a driver in a single-car wreck of three
drunken-driving offenses that left two passengers dead, a third maimed and a fourth injured.
Richard Freeman, an enlisted Navy sailor, was found not guilty Tuesday on two counts of
aggravated involuntary manslaughter and a single count of maiming in the fiery 2009 wreck
on Granby Street. The jury took two days to reach a verdict.
Freeman testified that his back-seat passengers distracted him and caused him to slam his
BMW into a tree in the median across from Bon Secours DePaul Medical Center.
A prosecution witness testified that Freeman's blood alcohol content was at least 0.10 after
the crash, exceeding the state's legal limit for driving.
Outside the courthouse after Tuesday's verdict, family members of the victims cursed and
confronted defense attorney Andrew Sacks.
"We came out of this with no children and no justice," said Trent Richardson, father of victim
Cameron Richardson.
Freeman, 26, left with his family and said little. "There's raw emotions on both sides," Freeman said.
The case spanned nearly two years, several delays and the appointment of a special prosecutor
because of a conflict in the Norfolk commonwealth attorney's office. Testimony brought diverging
stories about what exactly caused the crash in the early morning of July 25, 2009.
Richardson, 25, a Salem High School graduate and Navy sailor, and Lauren Kok, 22, a nurse visiting
from New York, were killed in the crash. A third passenger, Thomas Jaskel, of Pennsylvania, was
severely injured, and a fourth survived with minor injuries.
At trial, Freeman testified he was drinking mixers and shots while shooting pool with friends
at Red Dog Saloon in Ghent. Later in the evening, he stopped and sobered up, he said. At
closing time, he noticed four strangers who were noticeably drunk and unsuccessfully trying
to get a cab, he testified. He offered them a ride home.
During the trip north on Granby Street, the backseat passengers acted up and just over the
Granby Street bridge, something struck him sharp in the jaw, he testified. He blacked out, he
testified.
A paramedic at the scene testified that he found Kok without her pants on the median.
Under cross-examination, he said the pants may have been removed by witnesses to pull her from
the mangled, burning car.
Sacks argued to the jury on Monday that a pair of pants thrown around the back seat may have
played a role in the crash. "There is reasonable doubt about what happened in that car," Sacks told
jurors.
Sacks also attacked the handling of the case by Norfolk police and prosecutors. A Norfolk police
officer testified that he wrote - mistakenly - in a sworn statement during the investigation that he
ordered blood drawn from Freeman after the crash.
The Norfolk commonwealth's attorney's office withdrew from the case because of the conflicting
testimony. B. Thomas Reed, a veteran Norfolk defense lawyer, was appointed to prosecute the
case.
Reed told the jury that Freeman's story was "absurd." He told the jury that Freeman spent
hours drinking at the bar and got kicked out.
A forensic scientist testified that Freeman's blood alcohol content was above the legal limit
to drive in Virginia.
Reed said a Hampton Roads Transit bus video of the crash, discovered by the prosecution
last week, showed Freeman flying around a corner at 80 mph.
Between the alcohol and the speed, Reed said, "he simply couldn't negotiate the turn."
Outside the courthouse after the verdict, Freeman and his family briefly met with Sacks and then
departed.
"There's no real winner in a case like this," Sacks said.
The victims' relatives sobbed. Richardson said he was angry but did not blame police or prosecutors.
"Every step of the way it's been a fight," he said.
Lauren Kok's father, Simon Kok, swore and kicked the defense attorney's legal files. Friends held
him back.
Louis Hansen, (757) 446-2341, louis.hansen@pilotonline.com
Sailor cleared by jury in crash now faces court-martial
By Kate Wiltrout
The Virginian-Pilot
© March 24, 2012
A Navy petty officer acquitted in civilian court on drunken driving offenses in a crash that killed two
passengers may have to face another jury, this time in military court.
At a preliminary hearing Wednesday at Norfolk Naval Station, military prosecutors asked the
investigating officer to recommend a general court-martial for Richard Freeman on three
counts of drunken or reckless operation of a vehicle and two counts of bringing discredit
upon the armed forces.
Freeman, a petty officer 2nd class, was at the wheel of a BMW heading north on Granby Street in
the early hours of July 25, 2009, when it slammed into a tree near Bon Secours DePaul Medical
Center. Two of his four passengers - 25-year-old Cameron Richardson, a sailor from Virginia Beach,
and 22-year-old Lauren Kok, a nurse visiting from New York - died in the crash. A third was
paralyzed and suffered brain damage.
Freeman walked away with cuts and bruises. He was tried in June in Norfolk on two counts of
aggravated involuntary manslaughter.
A prosecution witness testified that Freeman's blood alcohol content after the crash exceeded the
state limit for drunken driving.
Freeman's lawyer argued that the passengers, who accepted a ride from Freeman after they couldn't
get a cab, were rowdy and distracting. Freeman testified that he blacked out at the wheel after being
struck in the back of the head.
After two days of deliberations, a jury found him not guilty of the charges.
Now the Navy is considering court-martialing Freeman, a cryptological technician assigned
to the cruiser Vella Gulf.
That decision falls to Rear Adm. Tim Alexander, commander of the Navy's Mid-Atlantic
Region, who could decide to handle the matter administratively or drop it altogether.
Michael Fasanaro, a civilian lawyer representing Freeman in the Navy case, declined to comment
Friday.
Although it's unusual for the Navy to prosecute a sailor already tried in the civilian system, it
isn't unprecedented. Last year, after a civilian jury convicted Chief Petty Officer Rodney
Williams of manslaughter and sentenced him to a year in prison, the Navy decided to court-
martial him on the same charge. A Navy jury in Norfolk also found him guilty, sentencing him
to five years in prison and a bad conduct discharge.
The prosecutions aren't considered double jeopardy because they're not carried out by a
single sovereign entity. Williams was found guilty and Freeman was acquitted in state court;
military courts are part of the federal government.
According to Mike Mink, a Mid-Atlantic Region spokesman, Freeman has been assigned to an
administrative job at Naval Surface Force Atlantic. The military's Manual for Courts-Martial specifies
a punishment of no more than 18 months for each count of drunken or reckless driving.
Kate Wiltrout, 757-446-2629, kate.wiltrout@pilotonline.com