NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — An off-duty Suffolk County police officer who fractured a 2-year-old boy’s skull when he rear-ended a car with his pickup truck was allowed by his fellow officers to forgo an alcohol test, according to an extensive investigation from Newsday.
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Because officers broke protocol and failed to administer a test, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office was unable to pursue vehicular assault charges against Officer David Mascarella.
The officers involved also failed to notify the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office that Mascarella had refused to take a breathalyzer test, which prevented the DA from deciding to seek a warrant for a blood test which could have verified if he was drunk during the accident.
Mascarella crashed his truck at over 50 mph into a car holding Kevin Cavooris and his two young sons on Middle Country Road in Saint James in August 2020.
Cavooris had slowed to make a left turn when he was rear-ended by Mascarella, who was driving erratically for about a mile-and-a-half before the collision, according to a witness cited in the police report.
Cavooris was thrown into the steering wheel and broke his nose, while his two-year-old son’s skull cracked in multiple places.
The injured child had to relearn how to feed himself and perform other activities he had recently learned as a toddler.
Almost two years after the crash, he still needs leg braces and is unable to run or jump.
Officers from the precinct Mascarella works at responded to the crash and broke protocol to protect him from undergoing alcohol tests.
A detective told Sgt. Lawrence McQuade he wanted to administer a breathalyzer test, but McQuade instead contacted Officer Joseph Russo, a Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association delegate. Russo drove Mascarella away from the scene of the crash before he could be tested.
Officer Kevin Wustenhoff lied to a supervisor that he had given Mascarella a breath test and that he had passed, an anonymous law enforcement source told Newsday.
Wustenhoff later retracted his report.
Three hours after the crash, Deputy Inspector Mark Fisher finally asked Mascarella to take a breath test, and the off-duty officer refused.
Normally, when a driver refuses a breathalyzer, police seek a warrant to have the driver’s blood tested for alcohol.
Fisher instead issued a traffic ticket and moved on.
Cavooris’ lawyers obtained video and police records for the incident that were reviewed by Newsday.
Security footage from a nearby business showed Mascarella throwing an object from his truck’s window about nine seconds after the crash.
Two minutes later, after Mascarella pulled over and spoke to someone on his cell phone, he appeared to return to the object and retrieve it.
County payroll records reviewed by Newsday showed the Suffolk County Police Department suspended Mascarella and Wustenhoff, the officer who lied about administering a test, without pay on Feb. 3.
Wustenhoff’s suspension only lasted 45 days, but Mascarella remains suspended.
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