Probation in Suicide Van Case

June 6, 2007 — -- After his wife drove their children off a 300-foot cliff at Bear Mountain last summer, Victor Han told police he knew his wife had been suicidal. He just didn't know she would take their children with her.

Today, in a Rockland County court, Han will receive a sentence of probation, prosecutors told ABC News' Law & Justice Unit.

The couple's two children, then 3 and 5, did not sustain permanent injuries, but Victor Han' wife, Heijn Han, died at the scene of internal injuries and a broken spine. Victor Han recounted the harrowing episode in a statement to police last year. He told police his wife was sometimes suicidal, and that she may have been upset about an affair he was having with a 31-year-old work colleague.

As part of plea deal -- which ensures that the 35-year-old, self-employed architect will not retain custody of his two daughters -- he will be sentenced to three years' probation this morning in Rockland County court in New York, prosecutors there told ABC News.

"You're talking about a case where you have to decide what was the operation of not only [Victor Han's] mind but his wife's mind as well,'' Rockland County Chief Assistant District Attorney Louis Valvo told ABC News.

In a statement to police after the incident, Han said he didn't realize his wife's intention to drive off the cliff with the children in the car until it was too late.

"He thought she was going to jump off a cliff," Valvo said. "He never thought she was going to take the kids with her. That's one of the problems with this case. You have to microscopically determine what Victor Han and his wife were both thinking."

Valvo said that New York state defines felony depraved reckless indifference as taking an action "under circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life, which creates a grave risk'' to another person.

"But here in the New York, the courts are divided on what the standards of evidence are to reach that bar,'' Valvo said. "How much did he know about his wife's thoughts that day? He and the two kids are the only witnesses we had."

In March, Rockland County District Attorney Michael Bongiorno dropped the most serious felony charges of promoting suicide and reckless endangerment and allowed Han to plead guilty to misdemeanor child endangerment. Had Han gone to trial and lost, he would have faced between 28 months and seven years in prison. Bongiorno told reporters after the plea deal that it was his first time in 12 years as a district attorney that he'd brought a charge of promoting suicide.