NEW YORK — A state trooper was jailed Wednesday after a grand jury charged him with killing an 11-year-old Brooklyn girl by ramming her family’s car twice from behind, causing it to flip during a high-speed pursuit on the New York Thruway in upstate Ulster County.
Trooper Christopher Baldner faces charges of murder, manslaughter and reckless endangerment in the Dec. 22 crash that killed Monica Goods, who was heading to a family Christmas gathering with her father, stepmother and 12-year-old sister.
After the indictment was handed up by an Ulster County grand jury, Baldner surrendered Wednesday, and was suspended from his job without pay, said a state police spokesman.
Later Baldner was arraigned before Judge Bryan Rounds of Ulster County Court and was ordered jailed while awaiting trial, the attorney general’s office said. He has a bail hearing scheduled for Nov. 4.
While the case was being investigated, Baldner was on desk duty.
“Police officers are entrusted to protect and serve, but Trooper Baldner allegedly violated that trust when he used his car as a deadly weapon and killed a young girl,” said Attorney General Letitia James. “While nothing will bring Monica back, we must hold law enforcement to the highest standards, which is why my office is committed to seeking justice in this case.”
“This is an important step in the march for justice for the wrongful death of a beautiful young girl and the psychological injuries sustained by her sister,” said lawyer Sanford Rubenstein, who represents Monica’s mom, Michelle Surrency.
The little girl’s dad, Tristin Goods, told the Daily News that Baldner pulled him over for speeding near Ulster — where the Thruway is also marked as Interstate 87 — and the two argued.
Baldner lost his temper and sprayed the interior of the SUV with pepper spray, striking the dad, the stepmom and the two girls, Goods said.
Fearing for his life, Goods said, he drove off. Baldner pursued him and rammed him twice at high speed, say Goods and lawyers preparing to sue the state and the state police.
The two crashes — documented in state police accident reports obtained by The News — caused the SUV to flip over a guardrail, killing Monica.
“No one is celebrating these events,” Tristin Goods told The News via his lawyer Thursday. “My little girl is dead. I am grateful to the grand jurors, the attorney general and all the community activists who would not let her name die.”
In the crash’s aftermath, Surrency told The News, troopers interrogated Monica’s 12-year-old sister, Tristina, for hours without another adult present.
Surrency has filed a lawsuit in connection with Monica’s death. She previously told The News that the death followed by the interrogation has severely traumatized her surviving daughter.
The grand jury also charged Baldner in a second non-fatal crash on Interstate 87 in September 2019 in which he’s accused of ramming a vehicle carrying three people.
In that case, the grand jury concluded Baldner had rammed motorist Jonathan Muthu’s 2018 Dodge Caravan, causing him to lose control and crash into a guardrail. Two other people were in the van when the crash took place.
Gov. Kathy Hochul last week issued an executive order directing the state Attorney General to investigate that crash and one other.
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Tristin Goods’ lawyer Joseph O’Connor said he plans to file a federal lawsuit over Baldner’s conduct.
“This is a case that still needs all of our attention and focus,” O’Connor said. “When it happened, it seemed it was going to slip off of people’s memories and now this is the second stage. We need to examine what this trooper did on prior occasions.”
Don Boyajian, the lawyer for Monica’s stepmom, April Goods — who was in the SUV when it crashed — said the grand jury’s decision was a huge relief for her.
“She was in complete shock about how this trooper approached them and what followed,” Boyajian said. “He (Baldner) came off as belligerent from the moment he approached these people. They actually asked him to get a supervisor, and his response was to pepper spray them.”
Baldner faces a maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison if he’s convicted of the second-degree murder charge.
Thomas Mungeer, president of the union that represents Baldner, offered his condolences to Monica’s family but suggested the grieving dad contributed to the crash.
“We respect the legal process and are preparing for the next step, which will be to provide legal representation to the involved trooper, a right afforded to every American citizen tried by a jury of peers,” Mungeer said.
“As this case makes its way through the legal system, we look forward to a review and public release of the facts, including the motorist’s reckless actions that started this chain of events.”
