FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The bungling prosecutor trying the DUI case against ex-Yankee Jim Leyrtiz strikes again.
A friend who was in Leyritz’s SUV the night of his deadly crash originally told authorities that the former Yank blasted through a turn red — although in court the DA never challenged the witness when he changed his tune and said it was yellow at the time of the accident.
Leyritz had taken his eyes off the road and was barreling toward the intersection — and the changing light was yellow, passenger Bruce Barger told jurors in Leyritz’s drunken-driving manslaughter case on Tuesday.
On cross-examination, Barger said from the witness stand that he desperately tried to warn the ex-Yankee to stop as they blasted through a yellow light and plowed into another car, killing a mom of two.
But prosecutors failed to ask Barger — both on direct or re-direct — that he had said something different to officers after the accident.
In the police statement, Barger told cops in January 2008 that the light was red in the intersection the moment Leyritz crashed his car.
When asleep-at-the-switch prosecutor Stefanie Newman tried to ask the officer who quizzed Barger on why his account was different, Leyritz’s defense team objected.
Judge Marc Gold ordered the jury to leave the room before Jill Hirsch, a Fort Lauderdale traffic homicide investigator, could answer.
The defense wants the judge to order that it is improper for the witness to answer the question.
Gold later ruled for the defense — dealing a further blow to the defense — saying the investigator was not allowed to testify to inconsistency of Barger’s statements.
The trial got odder later in the day when the judge excused the jury once again after Leyritz inexplicably began crying at the defense table.
Leyritz’s Ford Expedition slammed into a Mitsubishi Montero driven by Fredia Ann Veitch on Dec. 28, 2007. Veitch was thrown from the car and later pronounced dead at a hospital.
The DA’s case has been plagued by foul-ups.
On Tuesday, the trial came to a screeching halt when Newman failed to challenge defense questions put to a Veitch pal about how much the young mom had to drink before she died.
Gold blew his stack when Newman herself then got up and asked the witness to describe Veitch’s “condition.”
“My ruling was that her condition was not relevant,” Gold told Newman.
Prior to the trial, Gold barred toxicology evidence that Veitch’s blood-alcohol was also 0.18, the same as Leyritz’s. He said Veitch’s level of drunkenness had no bearing on whether Leyritz ran a red light before the crash.