LI, who fled to India after a fatal accident in 2005, smiles in court as he faces the victim’s family in tears and was sentenced to 10 years.
The family of a man killed by a reckless driver who fled to India twenty years ago tearfully explained that the loss of his father changed their lives forever.
Krystina Morrone, the daughter of slain motorist Philip Mastropolo – who was killed in a horrific car crash in 2005 by Ganesh Shenoy, 54 – faced her father’s killer in court for the first time in 20 years on Friday before he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
“You took my hero from me, the one person I looked up to,” Morrone told Shenoy, who was seen smiling as she entered the Nassau County courtroom for sentencing, in her victim impact statement.
“I had to graduate high school without him, get married without him, have two children who will never know their grandfather,” she said through tears.
Morrone also added that his brother is currently battling leukemia, and now he is stuck facing that battle without his father by his side.
The convicted killer was now extradited from India in September last year, and pleaded guilty last month to running a red light twice the speed limit and crashing Mastropolo’s car, 44, in 2005.
Shenoy, who was no longer smiling after hearing Morrone’s tearful testimony, apologized profusely.
“I’m sorry to the family,” he said, without saying a word before he was sentenced to ten years in prison on Friday, where he will serve a minimum of three years and four months.
On April 11, 2005, Shenoy ran a red light and hit Mastropolo – who was on his way to work – so violently that his car was sent spinning 65 feet into an intersection.
After a fatal accident in 2005, Shenoy was taken to hospital for treatment but refused attention and walked away without being arrested at the time.
Although his passport was confiscated, he boarded a flight from JFK to India just 14 days after killing Mastropolo on April 25.
Shenoy did not return to the US until he was extradited to the country to face charges in September of last year.
He was formally charged in August 2005, four months after fleeing the country, and Nassau County has been trying to bring him back ever since, Nassau County Attorney Anne Donnelly said.
“For two decades, Philip Mastropolo’s wife and children have carried the weight of his loss and the burden of knowing that a cowardly defendant was hiding half a world away,” Donnelly told reporters after court.
“They are waiting for accountability and the day Ganesh Shenoy is finally sentenced. Today is that day,” Donnelly added.
“When the defendant fled to India after his destruction, he tried to evade the law and responsibility. But justice has no limits or expiration date, and last year he was brought back to answer for the crimes he avoided for a long time. Now, prison awaits him.”
