NEW YORK - A U.S. customs agent has been indicted in the shooting death of a 50-year-old man, but his lawyer says the incident was just a horrible accident.

Eric Alke was arraigned Friday in Queens on charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. The 41-year-old Customs and Border Protection agent pleaded not guilty.

Queens prosecutors say Alke was off duty and had been drinking when he recklessly fired his .38-caliber revolver at his house on June 26. The shot struck Adrian Moldovan, a Queens real estate agent who had come to the house to help the landlord build a backyard patio.

“Sadly, this case is a grim lesson why guns and drinking are a lethal mixture,” Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown said.

Alke's lawyer, Gerard Marrone, says his client wasn't drunk, and he disputed the prosecutor's account of the shooting.

Marrone said Alke, who works at John F. Kennedy International Airport, left his gun on a shelf in a vestibule leading to his residence, walked away and then heard a gunshot.

He said Moldovan must have picked up the weapon and shot himself with it accidentally.

“The victim took his gun and it went off,” said Marrone, who added Alke rushed to Moldovan's aid and started giving him CPR.

“Eric feels horrible about this,” Marrone said. “He's a wreck.”

Marrone said the police never did any type of test to see if Alke had indeed fired the gun.

If convicted, Alke faces a maximum of 15 years in prison.

Alke, who's being held on $75,000 bail, has been on modified duty since the shooting.