A Waterbury man was allegedly smoking a blunt stuffed with synthetic marijuana before driving his car off Route 8 and crashing into the side of a pediatricians’ practice on Westfield Avenue in Ansonia last year.
That’s the account provided to police by a witness riding in a car with the driver, Stanley Chenkus, according to an arrest warrant.
Chenkus, 60, was arrested in May on charges of driving under the influence, first-degree assault, second-degree assault with a motor vehicle, possession of narcotics, possession of narcotics near a daycare facility, third-degree criminal mischief, risk of injury to a minor, reckless driving, and two counts of second-degree reckless endangerment.
Five of those charges are felonies.
He has pleaded not guilty, according to court records. He has posted a $120,000 bond in the case and is due back in court Sept. 18.
Chenkus was allegedly behind the wheel of his Buick LeSabre on Route 8 north just before 10 a.m. on May 20, 2014 — having just come from a methadone clinic in Bridgeport.
There were three people riding in the car within him, two middle-aged women and a 28-year-old man.
Chenkus and one of his passengers were allegedly smoking “K2,” a brand of synthetic marijuana, while traveling through the Valley on Route 8.
He began speeding and weaving through traffic, according to an arrest warrant written by Detective James Frolish.
Other motorists took notice of his erratic driving — even honking their horns and giving Chenkus the finger.
One of the female passengers said Chenkus laughed. She asked him to pull over because he kept drifting over the highway’s “rumble strips,” which are designed to alert motorists that their vehicles are heading off the road.
A passenger told police Chenkus drove over the rumble strips some 20 times within three to four minutes.
“Chenkus would not stop laughing, he was in his own hallucinogenic freaked out world,” the warrant says. “He did not comprehending anything anyone was saying to him.”
Eventually he passed out.
One of the passengers tried to gain control of the Buick, but couldn’t do it.
The car drove off the highway as it approached exit 18 (Division Street), hitting two mile markers and a “pedestrians prohibited” sign.
The car continued down the exit ramp, across Division Street and onto Westfield Avenue, passing a daycare with 35 kids inside. The Buick hit a parked car, a utility pole, and, finally, the side of Children’s Medical Associates.
None of the people inside the building were injured.
The passengers in the Buick weren’t as lucky. Their injuries included broken ribs, broken vertebrae, the loss of vision in one eye — even post traumatic stress disorder.
Police estimated the car traveled 650 feet from the time it went off the road to its final resting place.
Police said they found a glass crack pipe in the car, along with some small packets of heroin in Chenkus’ shorts.
The warrant says Chenkus did not remember the heroin being in his pockets.
“He was very open and wanted the police to check his blood and urine for drugs and alcohol,” the warrant says.
Tests on Chenkus’ urine and blood were negative for alcohol and heroin, but positive for methadone, Xanax, codeine, and morphine.
In the late 1970s Chenkus pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery for his part in the robbery and killing of two men in Woodbury.
His only recent convictions are for low-level misdemeanors.
