Jury sees video of Ann Marie Drago running over Evelyn Rodriguez

The last words anti-gang activist Evelyn Rodriguez ever spoke were to the woman who ended her life.

“I know your mother!” she shouted at Ann Marie Drago on a Brentwood street at about 4 p.m. on Sept. 14, 2018, court evidence shows.

It was just before Drago, 59, of Patchogue, pressed her foot on the gas pedal of her Nissan Rogue.

Rodriguez, 50, of Brentwood, was pulled under one tire before her head hit the ground with a sound that made at least one of her loved ones cry out in a Central Islip court Friday.

Emotions overflowed in the courtroom as a prosecutor in Drago’s criminally negligent homicide trial played a video that News 12 Long Island captured of the fatal confrontation on Ray Court.

It showed Rodriguez being crushed under the Rogue’s driver side tires.

The encounter ended the grieving mother’s life exactly two years after Drago’s own mother found the body of Rodriguez’s 16-year-old daughter Kayla Cuevas — the victim of alleged MS-13 gang violence — in her yard less than 300 feet away.

On the fateful day in 2018, prosecutors say Rodriguez and her partner, Freddy Cuevas, Kayla’s father, approached Drago’s sport utility vehicle demanding the return of stolen memorial items — some of which were in the SUV — after Drago dismantled a tribute to Kayla in front of her mother's home.

Drago did so, according to authorities, because the property was for sale and she didn’t want to scare off potential buyers who were due to visit.

Prosecutors contend the fatal crash happened after Drago turned her wheel toward Rodriguez and “hit the gas” as Rodriguez stepped forward and was first knocked down and then run over.

The defense says Rodriguez’s death was a tragic accident that happened because she was “scared to death” as Rodriguez and Cuevas cursed at her and threatened her.

Drago’s attorney, Stephen Kunken, previously told jurors his client was trying to escape the threat and eased forward to get away as Cuevas, who she thought was trying to get in the Nissan, went to the rear of the vehicle.

Kunken also said the registered nurse has long suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, panic disorder and major depressive disorder linked to a psychiatric patient's attack on her in 2008.

Drago’s shoulders shook Friday and she sobbed quietly at the defense table as Suffolk prosecutor Marc Lindemann repeatedly played the video that News 12 photographer Andrew Singh recorded that day.

Singh and two other News 12 team members were at the scene preparing to cover a 6 p.m. vigil Rodriguez had planned to commemorate her daughter’s life.

Lindemann asked the veteran journalist, who testified as the video played in court, why he kept recording as the confrontation unfolded.

“Because it was happening,” Singh said from the witness stand. “We’re there to document stuff. So I just started recording.”

A court officer brought a wad of tissues to the row where Rodriguez’s family sat together, leaning into each other while confronted with the agony of her last conscious moments.

Members of the news media, many of them longtime colleagues of the journalists who documented the encounter, shivered in other rows of the courtroom while hearing the desperate screams of News 12 reporter Eileen Lehpamer on the video after the Rogue ran over Rodriguez.

“Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God!” Lehpamer cried out after the deadly impact.

Cuevas spat a string of expletives at Drago.

“You [expletive] ran her over!” he said in part.

The video shows Drago got out of the Rogue after running over Rodriguez.

“Call 911. Call [expletive] 911!” she exclaimed.

“I am,” Lehpamer yelled, before telling Drago: “You just ran her over.”

“I know,” Drago replied.

"Evelyn," Cuevas then said, before adding: "Call somebody."

Before the video ended, it captured Drago saying: "Oh, my [expletive] God. Turn that off."

Suffolk District Attorney Timothy Sini was in the courtroom Friday afternoon and spoke in a hushed tone to Rodriguez's relatives, including another one of her daughters, during a break in proceedings after the video presentation.

It followed the prosecution's display of memorial items that authorities also recovered at the scene of the crash, including balloons from the memorial that Drago allegedly deflated and trashed.

Jurors handled the flattened balloons one by one, reading the messages to Kayla on them that included "Mommy & Daddy Love You!" and "Bullet Love You" — a nickname the teen got because of her lightning-quick basketball court moves.

"Love You My Angel," read a message on another balloon — a balloon left in memory of a daughter by a mother who would die hours later after a crash in the place where she had grieved.