Suffolk judge slaps cop shooter with maximum sentence

Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice John Collins handed down the maximum sentence –– 55 years to life –– for a gang member who was convicted earlier this year of shooting Suffolk police officer Mark Collins, a lifelong North Bellmore resident, in March 2015.

Sheldon Leftenant, of Huntington Station, who was 22 at the time of the shooting and is now 23, was convicted of attempted murder, weapon possession and resisting arrest on Jan. 26. A Suffolk jury needed only two hours to reach a verdict.

Leftenant’s defense attorney, Ian Fitzgerald, had reportedly sought a 25-year sentence for his client, but Judge Collins disagreed. Leftenant received a minimum 40-year sentence on the attempted murder charge and 15 years on the weapon charge.

Collins, a commissioner of the North Bellmore Fire District and Mepham High School graduate, was shot twice –– once in the neck and once in the hip –– close to midnight on March 11, 2015, according to Suffolk police officials. On March 15, the decorated officer returned home from the hospital.

Collins, who was 35 last March, was a plainclothes officer assigned to the 2nd Precinct Crime Section Gang Unit in Suffolk. He was on duty in an unmarked car when he made the stop on Mercer Court in Huntington Station. Four men were in the stopped vehicle; police identified three as gang members.

Leftenant confronted Collins before shooting him twice and fleeing the scene, officials said. After an intense search for the suspect, police apprehended Leftenant a block from the shooting site around 1 a.m. on March 12.

Collins remained in serious but stable condition in an induced coma at Stony Brook University Hospital, but his condition quickly improved. Wearing a white bandage on his neck to cover one of the bullet wounds he suffered, he left the hospital following a brief ceremony attended by dozens of Suffolk police officers and well-wishers.

Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone was on hand to wish Collins well as he was brought in a wheelchair to an awaiting car that took him home to North Bellmore. Officer Nicholas Guerrero, 36, who was critically injured by a hit-and-run driver last October and was also treated at Stony Brook, was there for Collins as well. Bagpipers played, and two helicopters flew overhead.