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Off-Duty NYPD Cop Busted For Drunk Wrong-Way LI Joyride
By
Jamie Feldmar
Published Dec 8, 2011
Modified Dec 8, 2011
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By
Jamie Feldmar
Published Dec 8, 2011
Modified Dec 8, 2011
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An off-duty cop was busted this week for drunk driving after she took an eight-mile cruise down a Long Island parkway...in the wrong direction.
Candice Smith, a three-year NYPD veteran, was driving down the Sagtikos Parkway in the predawn hours on Sunday, heading north in the southbound lane, "bashing and bouncing off the highway median as she drove along," according to eyewitnesses who spoke to the Post. She was intercepted by another driver, Eric Minkoff, who drove alongside her in the wrong direction until she finally came to a stop at the Pine Aire Drive exit for Brentwood at around 4:30 a.m. "At one point, I was able to see inside the car, and the passenger side air bag was blown out," Minkoff said. He called the cops and kept following Smith until they arrived. "At an opening, she stopped, and I did too, and that's when I guess she decided she wanted to keep going," he said. "I started blocking her, going back and forth with my car while she tried to go around me. Then the cops showed up."
Smith blew a 0.17 on a Breathalyzer (more than twice the legal limit) and was charged with drunk driving. State Trooper Frank Bandiero said that Minkoff did a "good job" of "[averting] a possible disaster," and indeed, cops don't always have the best track record when it comes to drunk driving. Smith was suspended for 30 days without pay and and is expected in court in Suffolk County on December 14.
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