An ex-New York State trooper who caused the death of 11-year-old girl Monica Goods when he rammed his patrol vehicle into the Brooklyn girl’s family car during an upstate chase was sentenced to two and a half to seven and a half years in prison on a manslaughter charge.
Monica was a passenger in her parents’ car in Dec. 2020 when Trooper Christopher Baldner, 48, pulled the vehicle over in Ulster County, and pepper-sprayed the girl’s father during the stop, officials said.
After the driver sped off, Baldner gave chase, twice rear-ending the vehicle, which skidded into the center guard rail, flipped over and came to rest upside down.
The impact ejected Monica from the car. She was pronounced dead a short time later.
“It is some type of accountability,” Monica’s mother, Michelle Surrency, told the Daily News after the sentencing. “It could have gone a different way. It’s a deterrent to let people know that you can’t do crimes and think you’re above the law.”
But Surrency said the prison sentence is little comfort.
“For me, there will never be justice,” she said. “There’s only one real justice, and that’s Monica coming back. Nothing changes for us at all. We still visit Monica in the cemetery. We still have to honor and live for her. On my end, nothing changes. We still have the same pain and hurt.”
During the trial, Baldner’s defense team had tried to blame the Brooklyn girl’s father, Tristin Goods, who was driving the car during the high-speed chase that ended near Kingston, saying he had acted recklessly.
Baldner’s attorneys said the accident occurred after the SUV cut the trooper off as he pulled alongside during the pursuit.
But Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Gashi told jurors that Baldner had “recklessly used his patrol car as a weapon” during the deadly chase.
An Ulster County jury found Baldner guilty in March.
Ulster County Sheriff’s Office
Christopher Baldner. (Ulster County Sheriff’s Office)
The retired trooper, a 19-year-veteran, was taken into custody following the sentencing.
Baldner was acquitted during his first trial on murder charges. But he was convicted at a second trial on the manslaughter charge.
“Let this be a message to police officers all over the country, that if you do what this police officer did, you will go jail,” said the family’s lawyer, Sanford Rubinstein.
The Police Benevolent Association of the New York State Troopers issued a statement after Baldner’s conviction in March, saying it was “deeply disappointed by (the) verdict.”
