Driver who plowed into NY nail salon, killing NYPD officer and 3 others, guzzled booze for 5 hours, hit 78 mph before crash: DA

The driver who plowed into a Long Island nail salon, killing an NYPD cop and three others, had guzzled booze behind a supermarket before the 78-mph crash, prosecutors said.

Steven Schwally, 64, spent more than five hours drinking Montebello Long Island Iced Tea and cruising around town before the horrific crash — later yelling at first responders, “Get me out of here … I’m a Marine!” Suffolk County prosecutors said Thursday.

Schwally had been a regular at the local liquor store for at least 14 years, often stopping in twice a day for two bottles of Montebello — the same fatal cocktail that led to the shocking, caught-on-video crash on June 28, according to prosecutors.

Two bottles of the liquor were found in the car after the fatal crash, they said in court.

“The defendant proceeded to drive around Deer Park for five and a half hours, drove behind the Stop & Shop and then proceeded around through the roadway, through five walkways, swerving around the cars, narrowly missing them,” Assistant District Attorney Alexander Bopp told the judge.

“He went through four stop signs, five crosswalks at ridiculous speeds, narrowly missing two pedestrians, passing so close that you can see in the video that one of the women’s hair was blown up in the air.”

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Bopp said the 2020 Chevy Traverse hit Hawaii Nail & Spa at 78 miles per hour.

He said Schwally lied to police that he drank 18 bottles of beer hours earlier — but was lit up on the more potent liquor he bought at 10:30 a.m. on the day of the fatal crash.

“There were no beer cans found in his room [at the Commack Motor Inn],” he said. “There was nothing in the room but one empty Montebello bottle.”

The shocking crash, which was captured on surveillance video , killed off-duty NYPD cop Emilia Rennhack, 31, who was having her nails done for a wedding later in the day.

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Three others were also killed: Jiancai Chen, 37, Yan Xu, 41, and Meizi Zhang, 40.

A 12-year-old girl was among those injured in the drunken crash, suffering a severely broken ankle that prosecutors said required surgery “as well as the implementation of hardware into her leg.”

One of those injured had to be airlifted from the scene for emergency hip surgery.

Schwally was arraigned on driving while intoxicated charges on July 1 in Suffolk County court — with Rennhack’s newlywed husband, NYPD Detective Carl Rennhack, looking on.

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Rennhack was mourned by hundreds at a funeral service in New Hyde Park on July 6.

Schwally was indicted by a Suffolk County grant jury on Tuesday on second-degree murder and other charges and was arraigned on a 38-count indictment on Thursday.

In court, he was seen repeatedly wringing his hands as if washing them.

He was remanded and is due back in court Aug. 29.

Earlier records show that Schwally was also hit with a DWI charge in Dix Hills on March 25, 2013.

In that case, he smashed into a mailbox on Weathervane Way and kept driving — only to be nabbed by cops at a nearby intersection asleep behind the wheel with the keys still in the ignition.

Schwally pleaded guilty in that case and was sentenced to three years’ probation, records show.

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