Somebody has some explaining to do .....
"Kusznikow, of Oxycocus Road, is the son of Stafford Township Councilman Robert Kusznikow."
In April 2004, he was arrested for driving under the influence and underage drinking -- his first DUI offense. That charge was heard in Stafford's municipal court and he received a 210-day suspension of his driving privileges.

In September 2006, Kusznikow was charged with DUI in relation to an accident, Horan said.

"That case hadn't even been adjudicated when he was charged again," Horan said, with DUI on April 28, 2007.

The September 2006 charge was handled in Ocean County's Superior Court and Kusznikow's driving privileges were suspended for 730 days -- two years, as mandated by state law.

The April 2007 incident, however, was handled by Stafford's municipal court, and he received another 210-day suspension.

Horan said the Motor Vehicles Commission doesn't receive any explanations; they only receive notice of what action was taken, and he would not speculate on why Kusznikow did not receive a 10-year suspension.

If someone had done the right thing years ago, this murder could have been prevented.

What a shame

PS- I wonder if Paradise Island (SLANDREW) will post on this one?

Holy crap Tim, I never read this, that's absolutely nuts!

Wow, even worse!

First off, so sad to the families involved. Second, my parents shore house is in Barnegat and this one hits close to home. I spend a lot of time there.

I would love to say you are right Boxy but the bottom line is even if he had no license, he most likely still would have been driving. Thankfully over the past few years here in NJ they have been tightening up on DWI and the non-licensed/insured drivers.

After 23 years as an EMT, volunteering on my local First Aid Squad, I have seen the worst of what DWI can do. I have also seen far too many illegal drivers with no license, registration, insurance, etc. So why is it these crimes aren't being handled properly?
Well, we have a serious problem in our country right now with too many liberal groups protecting the "rights" of guilty parties.
"Your Honor, it was not my clients fault.... he had a hard childhood and can not be held responsible for his habits...."
It is a load of crap!!! Yes everyone makes mistakes and if it happens once and no one gets hurt or had the potential to get hurt from it then there should be some leniency. However, the opposite should apply when you endanger someone else's life or develop a repetitive pattern.

As an example: I have been guilty of "Drunk in Public" many times as I am sure many of us on here have. I have never been arrested for it and I would hope if I was they would be lenient on me!
However if I get behind the wheel in the same state of intoxication then by all rights, the full extent of the law should be enforced because now I am endangering other people.

Just my $.02

These habitual offender cases drive me nuts. How many horses have to get out of the barn before someone closes the door? The problem as I see it is not a need for new laws; it's that the existing laws need to be judiciously enforced - ALL ACROSS THE BOARD.

Since this guy got his first DWI at fifteen, it strikes me as a parenting issue. Even though he is 25 now, I think that his parents should be held accountable for not addressing an existing problem for the last ten years.

Regardless, my heart goes out to all those affected by this tragedy.

This idiot lives a couple blocks away from me, although I don't know him or his family.

Based on his history, I agree that even if he did get the 10 yr. suspension that he should have received, he probably would have still been driving anyway.

I'll be watching closely to see what kind of sentence he gets this time. Seems to me that he should have gotten some jail time when he hit those kids near Tim's house back in '06.

Man, you hit that one right on the head. It's not that we need new laws. We need existing ones enforced. So sad when you see one of these repeat / blatant offender incidents.

He got 180 days for the one in 06.

I missed reading that. Clearly, it wasn't enough of a deterrent for this dipchit.

The problem is the court will listen to his plea about needing the license to work, supporting himself/family, going to rehab., blah, blah, blah...... Buy into it hook, line and sinker and reduce the sentence. They are more afraid of wrongly convicting someone than the consequences of not properly punishing them.
It is easy to sleep at night for them when they can say,"well we punished him and he was in rehab when we gave him his sentence, too bad he fell off the wagon, not my problem."