Students hear the worst of it at DWI forum

"Four DWIs [is what] it took before that woman killed my child," said Deena Cohen, president of the Long Island chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Cohen was speaking before an assembly of about 50 students at Seaford High School, arranged by State Sen. Charles Fuschillo Jr., a Republican, and Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice, a Democrat who is up for re-election.

Cohen’s 21-year-old daughter, Jodi, was killed by a drunk driver 20 years ago.

"I need you to understand the importance of [not] drinking and driving and drugging and driving," Cohen told the students. "The pain never goes away, ever ... The pain is still here. The 20-year number did something to my head. Jodi is gone almost as long" as she was alive.

Tears were welling up in students' eyes as Cohen spoke.

Fuschillo and Rice gathered a panel of speakers ranging from Cohen to Nassau County Police Chief Karen O'Callaghan to Maureen McCormick, the assistant district attorney in charge of DWI prosecutions, Francis Ricigliano, a district court judge, Saul Lerner, the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District’s director of health and athletics, and Joseph Dell'Ano, father of a DWI victim killed on the Wantagh State Parkway.

The students sat silently as panel members spoke in the Seaford High library. Many of the listeners wore football and cheerleading jerseys. Rice opened the forum by saying, "One thing is going to happen if you drive drunk or under the influence of drugs -- you're going to kill yourself or someone else."

Fuschillo said the assembly was organized in part because of the inordinate number of high-profile DWI cases in recent weeks and months. "This is the bloodiest summer I could remember," he said.

O'Callaghan said that Nassau County has thousands of DWI arrests annually. "No matter what we do, we still arrest, on average, 3,000 people per year for DWI," she said, imploring the students to talk with their classmates about the dangers of DWI. "We need you to help educate your peers."

"It's your choice" whether to drink and drive, McCormick reminded the students. "There's nothing we can do to change the decisions you make."

Ricigliano said that the penalties for DWI are big. He told the students that the county will do its best to hold anyone arrested for DWI accountable. "Kathleen Rice is going to make sure she does her best to make sure you're proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt," he said. "Kathleen Rice doesn't care if you thought you could make it home" after drinking. "I don't care."

Marge Lee, a DWI crash survivor and anti-DWI activist, told the students, "Court's not necessarily the worst place" after you're caught for DWI. "The worst place is when your parents have to identify your body. I don't want you to end up in a morgue. I don't want you to end up in court."