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A suspected drunk driver who allegedly drank 18 beers before smashing into a nail salon and killing four people inside has been charged with second-degree murder.
Police say that Steven Schwally, 64, was behind the wheel of the car being driven at high speed before flying into the nail salon in Deer Park, New York.
Schwally told investigators he drank 18 beers the night before the crash and had two empty bottles of Long Island iced tea in his car and hotel room.
Appearing in court in Riverhead on Thursday, Schwally, a Marine veteran, was indicted on four counts of second-degree murder, and manslaughter, as well as multiple counts of aggravated vehicular homicide, vehicular manslaughter, assault, vehicular assault, driving while intoxicated, reckless endangerment, reckless driving, and speeding, according to WABC.
He pleaded not guilty to all the charges but will face 25 years to life if he is convicted.
Schwally, who faces a total of 38 counts, was driving a Chevrolet Traverse SUV that plowed through the front window of Hawaii Nail & Spa around 4.30pm on June 28.
Schwally told investigators he drank 18 beers the night before the crash and had two empty bottles of Long Island iced tea in his car and hotel room. He pleaded not guilty to all the charges but will face 25 years to life if he is convicted.
At the time of his arrest, Schwally’s speech was slurred, his eyes were bloodshot, and his breath smelled of alcohol, prosecutors say.
After the incident, while he was in the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, Schwally did not ask if he had harmed anyone, but said, “I haven’t broken any laws. Can I get my license back? I’m a Marine.”
The driver was going at 78mph at the time of the crash, with the accelerator 99 percent down, before driving head-on into the window of the salon, where workers and patrons were getting their treatments done, the outlet said.
The bodies of the four victims were stuck under the SUV and firefighters had to remove them first before they could get Schwally out of it.
The four victims were named as 37-year-old Jiancai Chen, the owner of the salon, Yan Xu, 41, and Meizi Zhang, 50, who were both employees, and Emilia Rennack, a 34-year-old off-duty NYPD officer who was getting her nails done ahead of a wedding.
Nine other people were injured in the tragic incident, including a 12-year-old girl, with three of them having serious injuries, prosecutors said.
Inside the car and his hotel room, authorities had discovered two large empty bottles and one full bottle of Long Island iced tea.
Receipts had shown Schwally purchased the two bottles at 11.03am that morning and was allegedly twice the legal alcohol when tested.
Prosecutors say that he went to a liquor store daily, sometimes twice a day, to get the beverage.
While the police did not find any empty cans, Schwally claimed that he hadn’t stopped drinking until around 4am, prosecutors said.
Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said that the suspect “displayed a total disregard for public safety and a depraved indifference to human life” and had “been drinking all day, we allege.”
The owner of the salon, Jiancai “Ken” Chen, was a father of two young children and lived in Queens. “We were such a happy family. Now it’s all crushed,” his brother, Steven Chen, said through tears at a press conference.
Rennhack, who was also killed in the crash, lived in Brooklyn and worked at the Queens 102 Pct., with her husband Det. Carl Rennhack, whom she married in September.
“Our hearts are heavy as we mourn the loss of Police Officer Emilia Rennhack, whose life was taken far too soon,” Police Commissioner Edward Caban wrote on X.
