STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Pedro Abad isn't making any deals yet.

Mario Gallucci, the lawyer representing the former Linden, N.J., police officer charged in a fatal wrong-way crash, told a judge Wednesday his client was not accepting a plea offered by prosectors.

Prosecutors put the offer -- which would require him to spend at least five years behind bars and, perhaps, as many as 21 -- on the record three weeks ago at a conference in state Supreme Court, St. George.

Justice Mario F. Mattei said on Wednesday that, without a resolution, there would be a pre-trial hearing on March 30 and perhaps jury selection April 10.

"I believe we're going to end up going to trial," Gallucci told a reporter after the hearing.

Abad would face a maximum sentence of eight and one-third to 25 years in prison if convicted at trial of aggravated vehicular homicide. The minimum sentence on a trial conviction is one to three years.

The defendant would be subject to a lesser maximum sentence if convicted of any of the other charges against him, such a vehicular manslaughter and second-degree manslaughter.

Abad was charged in September 2015 under a 27-count indictment.

Prosecutors allege Abad was drunk when he plowed into a tractor trailer shortly before 5 a.m., on March 20, 2015, killing two passengers in his car - Joseph Rodriguez and Linden P.O. Frank Viggiano, both 28.

Abad was badly injured in the wreck as was another passenger, former Linden Police Officer Patrik Kudlac, 25.

Abad and his three passengers had been drinking at Curves, a Charleston strip club, shortly before the crash, said authorities.