Accused drunk driver had ’18 beers’ before crash that killed NYPD Officer Emilia Rennhack: prosecutors

The alleged drunken driver who killed NYPD Officer Emilia Rennhack and three others admitted he had “18 beers” the night before the horrific Long Island crash, prosecutors said Monday.

Sitting in a wheelchair and wearing a hospital gown, Steven Schwally, 64, said nothing as he was arraigned Monday in Suffolk County Criminal Court on a misdemeanor count of drunken driving and ordered held on $1 million cash or $2 million bond after Friday’s horrific crash. Prosecutors said they intended to seek homicide charges before a grand jury.

Rennhack’s NYPD detective husband, Carl, watched the proceeding with tears in his eyes as friends and loved ones sat next to him and consoled him. Relatives of the other victims also teared up, then broke into open sobs outside the courtroom after the proceedings wrapped up.

Schwally was speeding through the parking lot of a strip mall in Deer Park on Friday afternoon when he slammed his 2020 Chevy Traverse through the front windows of the busy Hawaii Nail & Spa, cops said. He came to a stop at the rear of the store, leaving shattered glass and broken bodies in his wake.

“The defendant admitted to Suffolk County police detectives that he had consumed 18 beers the night before,” Assistant District Attorney Alexander Bopp said Monday.

Rennhack, 30, was getting her nails done for a wedding at the time. She died in the carnage, as did two other women, Yan Xu, 41, and Meizi Zhang, 50, both from Flushing, Queens, and a man, Jiancai Chen, 37, of Bayside, Queens.

Schwally drove into the Kohl’s parking lot across the street from the Grand Blvd. salon and steered wildly, hitting pedestrians in a crosswalk before accelerating into the salon’s parking lot, Bopp said.

Video shows Schwally’s SUV as it “rips through the Kohl’s parking lot, rips across Grand Blvd., and slams into the salon,” Bopp said.

The SUV went airborne before Schwally drove into the parking lot and crashed into the salon, “bustling” with customers, through the front window.

“The defendant’s vehicle blasted through the front window of the salon, plowing through those individuals before crashing into the back wall,” Bopp said. “Witnesses described this crash as a violent explosion. They said it looked like a bomb had gone off in the salon. Bodies were everywhere. Several individuals including two of the deceased had to be recovered from underneath the defendant’s vehicle.”

Nine more people, including a 12-year-old girl, suffered injuries.

Schwally, who was found semiconscious after the crash, was taken to Good Samaritan University Hospital in West Islip with minor injuries.

He had bloodshot, glassy eyes with constricted pupils, mumbled and slurred his speech and his breath smelled of booze, according to a criminal complaint. Schwally consented to a blood test, but the results were still pending as of Monday afternoon.

The Dix Hills, L.I., resident was discharged from the hospital Monday morning and was arraigned before Judge Bernard Cheng later in the day.

Schwally, who has no fixed address and has been bouncing between hotels, has another DWI arrest on his record, from April 2014, the assistant district attorney said.

A suspect can be charged with felony DWI if they’re convicted twice in 10 years, but Schwally was sentenced in that case on June 27, 2014 —10 years and a day before the crash.

His Suffolk County Legal Aid Society lawyer described him as a Marine Corps veteran and a retired UPS worker who’s lived in Suffolk County for a half century.

“This individual’s horrible choices have shattered lives and turned dozens of families upside down. He should not have been behind the wheel that day, and he should not be back on the streets ever again,” Patrick Hendry, president of New York City’s Police Benevolent Association, said Monday. “While we wait for justice, we will continue praying for not only our sister’s family, but the families of all who were killed or injured.”

Rennhack joined the NYPD in 2018 and married Detective Carl Rennhack less than a year ago. The couple lived in Deer Park, not far from where she died.

“He was drunk midafternoon, 64 years old, drunk and I hope he rots in hell,” the victim’s mother-in-law, Holly Rennhack, told the Daily News after the crash. “He took four people’s lives away. He’s destroyed four families, and there’s many people injured. He’s just ruined so many lives.”