When the wife of Tuckahoe's former police chief crashed into a parked truck in the village last month - after allegedly crashing into two cars in Yonkers that same hour - responding officers did not perform a sobriety test, one turned off his body-worn camera early and an officer who knew she was the ex-chief's wife gave her a ride home, the Westchester District Attorney's Office determined after a review of the incident.
But prosecutors found insufficient grounds for any criminal charges against Tuckahoe officers over their handling of Donna Costanzo's accident, instead referring the matter back to Police Chief Larry Rotta for an internal investigation. They did recommend that the department modify its body-worn camera policy to ensure that officers keep
the cameras running when responding to a motor vehicle accident until the driver "has been cleared of any potential criminal wrongdoing."
"Our office determined that all of the available evidence that was accumulated is insufficient to establish provable criminal conduct by any one of the Tuckahoe police officers involved in the incident and, therefore, does not establish probable cause required to support the filing of criminal charges," the DA's Office said in a news release Tuesday, Sept. 22.
Costanzo, 65, is the wife of John Costanzo, who retired in October 2023 after 41 years with the Tuckahoe Police Department, the last 20 as chief.
Her bumpy ride Aug. 14 began when her Infiniti allegedly hit a parked car on Falmouth Road in Yonkers at 2:53 p.m. At 3:10 she allegedly hit another parked car in a lot on Central Avenue. Five minutes after that she hit the side of an Amazon delivery truck that was parked on Columbus Avenue just north of Main Street in Tuckahoe.
After the first two accidents, Yonkers police notified Tuckahoe police of the hit-and-runs and asked them to look out for Costanzo's car.
Costanzo is facing two traffic infractions of leaving the scene of a property damage incident in Yonkers City Court.
According to the news release, while Costanzo "exhibited signs that could be consistent with intoxication," the two police officers and other witnesses did not report any odor of alcohol or observe any definitive signs she was intoxicated.
But one witness, the Amazon truck driver, did say she appeared out of it.
"She kind of seemed a little disoriented, so I don't know if she's on meds or, you know, I don't want to assume nothing," he said, according to body camera footage.
The other body cam footage was from an officer who conversed with Costanzo. As he approached her car, she could be heard saying 'Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.' When he got to her window and asked what happened, she raised her arms, looked at the truck, back at the officer and said 'Sorry' again. That's when his camera shut off, although according to the news release, he claimed he had not turned it off.
The news release suggested investigators were hampered by the limited body-worn footage. The officer who spoke with the truck driver had about 1 minute 45 seconds of footage before their camera turned off. The DA's Office said Motorola was able to determine that the camera's battery had died.
One of the officers told investigators that they knew Costanzo was the ex-chief's wife so gave her a ride home, which was in the village half a mile away from the accident scene.
The review found that neither officer at the scene performed any sobriety test and the department did not document the reason for not investigating the circumstances of the accident.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: DA will not charge cops for how ex-chief's wife's accident investigation was handled
