A devastated Long Island cop recalled through tears in court Monday how he responded to a fatal drunken wreck while on duty — only to learn that his wife, a fellow-cop, was the victim.
Nassau County cop Francisco Malaga, speaking at the sentencing of killer drunk driver Matthew Smith in Suffolk County court, said he was on patrol on Jan. 31 and was just doing his job when he arrived at the tragic crash scene, when he suddenly realized his family had been shattered.
His 42-year-old wife, police Officer Patricia Espinoza, lay dying in the wreckage.
“I came upon the crash moments after it happened and I stopped, because that’s what police officers do,” a tearful Malaga told Judge Timothy Mazzei. “I thought I was responding to help someone I had never met. Instead, I found my wife, Patricia.
“Nothing in my years as a police officer prepared me for that moment,” he said. “I watched the love of my life slip away — and that image will stay with me the rest of my life.”
Smith, 21, was returning from a night of binge drinking at the James Joyce bar in Patchogue — and even mocked pals who pleaded with him not to get behind the wheel, when he smashed into Espinoza’s car.
Smith, who had a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal limit, blew through a red light at about 70 mph in a 30 mph zone and slammed his Chevy Silverado pickup truck into Espinoza’s vehicle.
The married mom was rushed to Stony Brook Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Suffolk County cops found a bottle of Bacardi rum and a shot glass in Smith’s truck.
The reckless drunk pleaded guilty last month to aggravated vehicular manslaughter and other charges, and was hit with a sentence of seven-and-a-half years to 22 years in state prison.
Mazzei wiped away tears as relatives delivered victim impact statements in a courtroom packed with kin and cops, among them Philadelphia Police Officer David Almeida, the dead woman’s brother.
“As a police officer, I have responded to shootings, stabbings, fatal crushes, and countless tragedies, caused by impaired drivers just like you,” he told Smith. ““I have a stood beside grieving families — I believed I understood their pain. No, I didn’t. Not until it happened to my family.
“Nothing prepares you for the phone call that changes your life forever, nothing prepares you to bury your best friend, nothing prepares you to watch a little girl grow up without her mother, because someone chose to drink and get behind the wheel. I would not wish this pain to anyone,” he said.
Relatives said Espinoza migrated to the US from Ecuador with her family 20 years ago, and later became a corrections officer with her brother before each joined their separate police forces.
She and her husband were raising their young daughter while on the job — until tragedy struck.
Her sister, Cathalina Ramirez, said the tot will never really know her mom.
“She made people laugh,” Ramirez said of her sibling. “She made people feel safe. She made everyone around her feel loved. She dedicated her life to protecting complete strangers as a Nassau County police officer. But to us, she was simply Patty.”
Smith kept his head down as he heard again and again of the pain he had caused.
“No sentence can restore what was taken from Officer Espinosa’s loved ones, but today this
defendant begins paying the price for his conduct,” Suffolk County DA Ray Tierney said in a statement. “He was intoxicated, speeding, and lawless behind the wheel of a 5,000-pound pickup truck, and a police officer on her way to serve her community paid with her life.”
