Sean P. Ludwick is a former real estate developer, repeat offender, and eventually a killer imprisoned for a vehicular homicide while driving intoxicated.
Background[]
Ludwick was born in 1972 or 1973 in Manhattan, New York City, to an American father from Flatbush, Brooklyn, and a Peruvian mother. He's fluent in Spanish, has a height of 6 feet, and weighs 230 pounds. Ludwick graduated with a bachelor's degree at Rhode Island U., and an MBA at Pennsylvania U. Ludwick worked in associate and managerial positions in information technology, investment banking, and construction offices, before founding the Black House Development firm in Manhattan in 2007 with a fellow alumnus and a third-party contractor. He married Pamela Harrison Ludwick, with whom they have two young adult sons. Ludwick's career is tenured with modern, luxury construction of condos and hotels. In 2014, Ludwick was reported to be buying a strip club, though the outcome of the negotiations was never specified. Ludwick paints in his spare time, one of his recurring projects being murals.
Criminal History[]
Ludwick had a lengthy history of drunk driving and domestic disturbances with mistresses outside of his marriage. It was bad enough when he sued his partners for pushing him out of the company, he dropped the lawsuit when his arrest record was brought to the table. Ludwick was found guilty of driving while impaired in 2009. In May 2013, he was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon of a girlfriend at an inn. He lied his girlfriend was responsible, then pled down his charges to only be sentenced to probation. In February 2014, Ludwick broke into a mistress' apartment when believed she was cheating on him. He scribbled phallic shapes all over a painting he gave her, carved "STUDIO ART" into two stools with a knife, spilled paint all over her floor, and hacked into her computer to send multiple emails under her name to her company, lying she had multiple affairs, including with her supervisor. In spite of multiple charges being pressed, Ludwick confessed and pleaded guilty only to aggravated harassment, receiving a sentence of conditional release and anger management therapy. Gothamist published a scathing column on his record. The next month, Ludwick was arrested for assaulting another girlfriend, which he also confessed to.
Murder, Imprisonment, and Conditional Release[]
On August 30, 2015, Ludwick was drunk behind the wheel of his Porsche, crashing it into a telephone phone in Sag Harbor at high speed. He gravely injured his friend, Paul Hensen, who was in the passenger seat, to which Ludwick reacted by leaving Hanse on the street, throwing Hansen's wallet into the woods, and driving off. Ludwick only drove the car a quarter a mile away, as it was so badly damaged it lost two of its wheels and mangled the other two. A neighbor called 911, and police arrested Ludwick. In spite of his obvious intoxication, he refused to take a breathalyzer test. Police tracked leaking oil to Hanse, who tragically already died at the scene. A court-ordered blood draw five hours after the crash, tested Ludwick's BAC as .18, more than twice New York's legal limit. Ludwick was arraigned at Southampton Town Justice Court on charges of intoxicated driving and fleeing a fatal accident, with Pamela present. His attorney argued he was no flight risk, but Justice Deborah Kooperstein set his bail at $1 million and suspended his driver's license due to his past record. A grand jury indicted him in thirteen separate charges in December. When Ludwick took sailing instructions in Puerto Rico, as well as made a wire transfer to buy a boat to flee to South America, an FBI agent posing as an instructor infiltrated his activities. He would later be revealed to have conducted internet searches on extradition, to find a country without the diplomacy with the U.S. that would warrant his own extradition. When Ludwick asked these sorts of questions to the undercover agent, the agent tipped off local authorities and U.S. Marshals, who arrested him. A judge remanded him without bail to Suffolk County Correctional in February 2016. The Daily Beast would publish a scathing article comparing Ludwick to Donald Trump. When the case got transferred to the New York State Supreme court, under Justice Fernando Camacho, Ludwick pleaded guilty in August 2017 to aggravated vehicular manslaughter, leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death, and aggravated driving while intoxicated, and he was sentenced to three to nine years in prison and waived his rights to appeal.
Hansen's widow settled a wrongful death suit with Ludwick out of court in 2018. She has openly protested Ludwick's sentence, asserting "the punishment did not fit the crime". Ludwick was denied parole three times, but his prison security was gradually reduced from maximum to medium. On January 20, 2022, Ludwick was released from New York State prison, under legal mandate after serving five years. Suffolk County intends to renege his parole on January 12, 2025. He's to not leave the state of New York without his parole officer's approval. In spite of his $2 million dollar assets when starting his prison terms, Pamela sold their Sutton Place townhouse in 2021, and Ludwick put his Bridgehampton property deeds into limited liability corporations in 2015, now residing on that property.
Modus Operandi[]
As Ludwick killed only one person, the term "M.O." is misused. Ludwick incidentally crashed his Porsche at high speed into a telephone pole, causing Sean Hansen critical injuries. He pulled Sean Hansen out of the car, left him on the street, and tried and failed to drive away. Ludwick stymied the law by refusing blood tests, which needed a court order, and planned to sail out of the country by taking lessons in Puerto Rico, buying a boat, and searching for countries without extradition diplomacy with the U.S. Ludwick previously assaulted his girlfriends in rages, as well as vandalized the apartment in phallic and destructively enraged fashions, including ruining a painting he gave her, ruining her apartment furniture, and trying to disgrace her at her job with lewd emails to her superiors and colleagues.
Known Victims[]
- 2009: Victimless drunk driving arrest
- May 2013: Unnamed girlfriend (assaulted with an unspecified weapon)
- 2014:
- February, New York City: Unnamed girlfriend (stalked; broke into her apartment and vandalized)
- March: Unnamed girlfriend (assaulted)
- August 30, 2015, Sag Harbor, Southampton, Long Island, New York: Paul Hansen, 53 (incidentally crash his own car into a telephone pole; left for dead)
On Criminal Minds[]
- Season Ten
- "X" - Ludwick was mentioned in the episode.
On Beyond Borders[]
- Season Two
- "Pretty Like Me" - While never directly mentioned or referenced in the show, Ludwick appears to be an inspiration for Geonwoo Lee - Both are violent repeat offenders who graduated from Northeastern American colleges, had multiple mistresses, abused his girlfriends, manipulated their cases to reduce legal scrutiny, were arrested at least once for aggravated assault in cases that never resulted in prison time (originally in Lee's case), and finally faced trial for an aggravated violent crime in the 2010s.