The family of a man killed by a reckless driver who fled to India over two decades ago tearfully described how the loss of their father has forever changed their lives.
Krystina Morrone, the daughter of slain motorist Philip Mastropolo — whose life was taken in a brutal 2005 car accident by Ganesh Shenoy, 54 — confronted her father’s killer in court for the first time in over 20 years on Friday before he was handed up to 10 years in prison.
“You took my hero from me, the one person that I looked up to,” Morrone emotionally told Shenoy, who was seen smiling as he entered Nassau County court for his sentencing, in her victim impact statement.
“I had to graduate high school without him, get married without him, and have two children that will never know their grandfather,” she said tearfully.
Morrone also added that her brother is currently fighting leukemia, and is now stuck going through that battle without being able to have his father by his side.
The now-convicted killer was extradited from India in September of last year, and pleaded guilty last month to manslaughter for running a red light at twice the speed limit and slamming into the car of Mastropolo, 44, in 2005.
Shenoy, who was no longer smiling after hearing Morrone’s tearful testimony, only offered a half-sincere apology.
“Sorry to the family,” he said, offering no other words before he was handed up to a decade in prison on Friday, where he will serve at least three years and four months.
On April 11, 2005, Shenoy blew through a red light and smashed into Mastropolo — who was on his way to work — so violently that his car was sent skidding 65 feet into the opposite intersection.
After the deadly crash in 2005, Shenoy was taken to a hospital for treatment but refused medical attention and left without being held criminally liable at the time.
Though his passport had been seized, he got on a plane from JFK to India just 14 days after he killed Mastropolo on April 25.
Shenoy didn’t return to the U.S. until he was extradited back to the country to face charges in September of last year.
He was officially indicted in August of 2005, four months after fleeing the country, and Nassau County has been trying to get him back ever since, Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly explained.
“For two decades, Philip Mastropolo’s wife and children have carried the weight of his loss and the burden of knowing this cowardly defendant hid half a world away,” Donnelly told reporters after court.
“They waited for accountability and for the day when Ganesh Shenoy was finally brought to justice. Today was that day,” Donnelly added.
“When this defendant fled to India in the aftermath of the destruction he caused, he tried to outrun the law and responsibility. But justice does not have borders or an expiration date, and last year he was brought back to answer to the charges he had evaded so long. Now, a jail cell awaits him.”
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