NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- A judge has pushed back a potential plea deal for the former New York state trooper accused of faking his own shooting on a Long Island parkway and sparking a multi-state manhunt last fall.
Thomas Mascia, 27, left the plea hearing in Mineola on Wednesday with his parents—all of them wearing green for Mental Health Awareness Month.
Mascia is accused of sparking a massive manhunt for a shooter who never existed—shooting himself in the leg along the Southern State Parkway on Oct. 30 and then making up a story about a driver fleeing the scene.
Mascia was expected to take a plea deal after he was charged in January with official misconduct, tampering with evidence and falsifying document. Under the plea, he’d serve six months in jail.
But when a state judge asked if he was in good mental health, Mascia said he wasn't. Mascia also signed a court document "Trooper Mascia," despite the fact he resigned in January.
Those two issues prompted the judge to set a new court date of May 21.
“The judge just wanted to give us a break, make sure that he’s okay,” said Mascia’s attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman. “And if he is capable of taking the guilty plea, we’ll do this in two weeks.”
Lichtman said his client is undergoing counseling services.
“I mean there’s no surprise when you’re charged with shooting yourself and reporting it as being shot by a perp, there’s obviously something that’s not right,” Lichtman said. “He’s getting treatment for it.”
When Mascia was charged earlier this year, Nassau County D.A. Anne Donnelly said, “My assumption could only be it would take someone with a wounded ego to think this would get him the attention he needs.”
“He knew the fear it would create,” she said, “but he did it anyway, whether for sympathy, attention, to ease a wounded ego.”
Mascia became a trooper in 2019 but was suspended without pay last November after state police launched a criminal probe into his account of the shooting.