Cops, parole officers were looking for crash suspect

BY CHRISTINE ARMARIO | christine.armario@newsday.com

8:38 PM EDT, May 12, 2008

Suffolk police had urged John Licausi to turn himself in after he was caught stealing leaf blowers a week before he fled from an officer and crashed into a father of three, killing him, according to court documents.

"He has refused to turn himself in to the Fourth Precinct or divulge his whereabouts numerous times, after numerous telephone calls," Officer Frank Rooney wrote in an application for an arrest warrant on May 2.

The warrant was signed four days later. But neither police nor the state Division of Parole -- which was also looking for Licausi after he missed a meeting with his parole officer last month -- were able to apprehend him before the deadly crash.

Last Thursday, he led police on a brief chase and was high on drugs when he ran through a red light, striking a Toyota Camry driven by Scott Foster, of Manorville, authorities said. Foster, the last remaining son of parents who had already lost his two siblings, died soon thereafter.

Authorities said they were committed to finding Licausi.

"We never stopped looking," said Carole Weaver, a parole division spokeswoman. She said Suffolk police contacted parole about the warrant and pending charges, and that they continued their efforts to find him.

"The police tried to get him, his probation officer tried to get him; there's only so much they can do," said Denna Cohen, of the Long Island chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. "I know they're all doing their job and they're doing the best they can do. Criminals elude the police and just wreak havoc on society."

Part of the problem may have been his somewhat transient residence. Licausi had been let go from his job as a salesman at a car dealership in Patchogue earlier this year, and neighbors along the Ronkonkoma street where he had been living said they hadn't seen his car there in recent weeks -- though they had seen police on the block near his apartment.

Last month, Licausi allegedly committed a string of petty crimes -- stealing a credit card and charging $602.52 on it at a Wal-Mart in Islandia on April 11; stealing two leaf blowers from a work trailer at a condo complex in Ronkonkoma on April 16; and selling a stolen meat slicer on April 30.

Robert Gangi, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, a nonprofit organization, said that behavior is a fairly typical pattern for someone who slips back into drug use. Indeed, once arrested for fleeing from the officer and causing last week's fatal crash, Licausi admitted that he'd had a relapse about a week before.

"I was doing good," Licausi told the drug recognition expert of his efforts to stay off cocaine. "I did about $100 worth, you know about a gram."

"His life was probably coming apart, he was engaged in various activities in order to get the money that he needed in order to buy the drugs," Gangi said yesterday. "And probably when he saw the cops coming after him, he knew he was going back to prison."

Licausi wasn't charged with stealing the meat slicer or using the stolen credit card until his arrest for driving while impaired by drugs, fleeing a police officer and multiple other offenses on Thursday. It remained unclear why the charges were not pressed earlier; though a warrant was filed for the petty larceny charge, none had been filed in connection with the others.

According to the state Division of Parole, Licausi had violated the terms of his probation twice since his release in December 2006. Last March, he went before an administrative law judge after admitting to driving without a license and failing to report to his parole program.

The judge ordered him to return back to his program, but did not send him back to jail.