WESTFIELD – A city woman already implicated in the fatal car crash which took the life of Anthony Caputo was arraigned in Westfield District Court Friday on additional charges related to the crash.
Lindsey Pelletier, 23, then of 125 Main Street and currently of 55 Woodside Terrace, was arraigned in September and charged with allowing unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle.
The investigating city officer, Harry Sienkiewicz, alleged in his complaint that Pelletier had been seen handing the key to her vehicle to Caputo, 18, of 11-C Holland Ave., who was never a licensed driver and had been convicted of using a motor vehicle without authority.
He was mortally injured early in the morning of Saturday, April 16, 2011, while driving her car when it smashed into a tree on Cross Street.
Both Caputo and a passenger, Anthony Gay, 18, of 86 Holyoke Road, survived the immediate effects of the crash. Gay recovered but Caputo succumbed six days later.
On Friday, Pelletier was arraigned in Westfield on three counts of furnishing an alcoholic beverage to a person under 21 years-of-age.
In his application for a criminal complaint, Sienkiewicz alleges that on April 15, about 9:30 p.m. Caputo gave Pelletier money at a Franklin Street package store to purchase a bottle of liquor.
Sienkiewicz further alleges that shortly after midnight, Pelletier “did produce a 1.75 liter bottle of Bacardi DragonBerry/Strawberry Rum that she had purchased earlier” and provided it to Caputo, Gay and a named 20-year-old female party.
Sienkiewicz alleges that all three of the underaged parties drank the rum.
At her arraignment, Pelletier was released on her person recognizance and ordered to return for a pre-trial hearing on Dec. 30.
The law that Pelletier was charged with violating, Chapter 138, Section 34, of Massachusetts General Laws, provide that violators “shall be punished by a fine of not more than $2,000 or by imprisonment for not more than one year or both.”
