Sheldon Leftenant sentenced to 55 years to life for shooting cop

A Suffolk County police officer had a front-row seat Monday as a judge imposed a sentence of 55 years to life on the street gang member who shot and seriously wounded him last year.

“An attack on a police officer is an attack on all of us. The punishment must be severe,” state Supreme Court Justice John Collins said in County Court in Riverhead as he imposed the maximum sentence on Sheldon Leftenant, 23, of Huntington Station.

Officer Mark Collins, no relation to the judge, sat in the front row in an aisle seat in a courtroom packed with about 75 police officers, most of them in uniform.

Outside court, Collins thanked his fellow officers, prosecutors and the staff at Stony Brook University Hospital, who treated him for his injuries, including a bullet that passed close to the vital carotid artery in his neck.

“I still have some lingering side effects but I’m not going to let them hold me back from doing what I love to do,” the officer, now assigned to the elite Emergency Service Unit, said.

The president of the Suffolk Policemen’s Benevolent Association, Noel DiGerolamo, also thanked the hospital. “Without the grace of God, and their [hospital staffers] expertise, Mark would not be here today,” he said.

A jury convicted Leftenant on Jan. 26 of attempted murder of a police officer, criminal possession of a weapon and resisting arrest. The judge sentenced him to 40 years to life on the attempted murder charge and 15 years on the weapons charge, to be served consecutively. He was sentenced to one year in jail on the resisting arrest conviction that will be served concurrently with the other terms.

Defense attorney Ian Fitzgerald of Central Islip said the sentences should be served concurrently because they stemmed from the same incident. Fitzgerald also said a sentence of 25 years to life would be appropriate.

Prosecutor Robert Biancavilla had asked for the maximum sentence. “A mother nearly lost a son, a wife nearly lost a husband and we, as a community, almost lost a hero, . . . ” Bianccavilla told the judge. “He should never be permitted to walk free in society again.”

Collins and two other officers had pulled over a speeding car on Goeller Avenue shortly before midnight on March 11, 2015. Collins said at the time he had known Leftenant for about eight years and recognized him in the back seat.

After chatting briefly, Leftenant became nervous and Collins said he asked him to step out of the car. Leftenant ran across Jericho Turnpike and up a driveway on Mercer Court, with Collins in pursuit.

Collins, a 17-year veteran, caught up with Leftenant and fired his Taser at the suspect’s back. Leftenant fell to the ground and the officer said he tried to handcuff him.

“I saw sparks near my face, and heard four loud pops,” Collins testified at the trial. “It was like time stood still, and I realized he was shooting. I gave my arm a command to pull my gun out, and my arm wouldn’t move.”

District Attorney Thomas Spota said at the time of the shooting that Leftenant had a long history of violent crime and was a member of a street gang, the Tip Top Boyz.

Leftenant was himself the victim of what Spota said is believed to be a gang-related shooting when he was wounded in the groin Aug. 6 in front of what was his home at the time on Tippin Drive in Huntington Station.

Spota said the shooting is unsolved, mainly because Leftenant “absolutely refused to cooperate with law enforcement.”