ALBANY – A jury, on Wednesday, Dec. 20, convicted a man of leaving the scene of an accident and tampering with physical evidence after it was alleged he hit and killed another man on Watervliet Shaker Road.
The most serious charge Brian Tromans was facing, criminally negligent homicide, was thrown out after judge Roger McDonough ruled there was not enough evidence to bring the charge.
But the jury decided Tromans did hit and kill Rudolph Seabron, a National Guard master sergeant from Rome in the Capital District for training and then fleeing the scene. It also found the 34-year-old guilty of trying to fix his car to hide his involvement from police.
Tromans, who is from Melrose but was living in Colonie at the time, admitted to being at a bar at 4 a.m. on Jan. 8 prior to hitting Seabron, who was walking on Watervliet Shaker Road near the Exit 5 overpass. He too was reportedly on his way from a bar to where he was staying.
In June, Assistant District Attorney David Szalda brought new evidence to a grand jury – DNA on the windshield and hood of Tromans’s car matched Seabron’s – and the panel charged him with the additional felonies of criminally negligent homicide and tampering.
Because of the two new felony charges, in addition to the initial felony of leaving the scene of an accident, Tromans was looking at up to 15 years in prison rather than the two and a third to seven. McDonough upped bail from $50,000 to $25,000 and at the time Tromans was taken back into custody.
About an hour after the fatal accident, Colonie police received a call from an anonymous motorist who believed they hit someone under the Exit 5 overpass. It’s unclear who made the call, or which vehicle killed Seabron – Tromans’s or the other.
His attorney, Lee Kindlon, maintained it was a horrendous accident but not criminal. Tromans maintained he believed to have hit a deer and not a person.
Tromans is looking at two and a third to seven years in state prison for leaving the scene of an accident, and another possible one and a third to four for tampering when he is sentenced on Feb. 9, 2018.
