Cop spots fashionable HOV mannequin in Suffolk

Something about a passenger in a car traveling the HOV lane of the Long Island Expressway in Islandia Tuesday morning seemed odd to Deputy Suffolk County Sheriff Robert Howard.

The passenger was wearing sunglasses, and the front-seat visor was pulled over to the side window. But it was cloudy outside.

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So Howard followed the green Chrysler convertible. Once he pulled alongside the car, he was able to see that the passenger was a mannequin.

"I said, 'You gotta be kidding me,' " Howard said.

Howard pulled over the driver, Kathleen A. Frascinella, 61, of Mount Sinai, and the legless mannequin, fully attired in a long, dark wig, color-coordinated blouse and blazer, scarf and eye makeup, he said.

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The incident happened about 7:20 a.m. as Frascinella drove west between exits 58 and 57, Howard said.

Frascinella was ticketed for operating a vehicle in the HOV lane without a passenger - a live one, anyway - which carries a $135 fine and two points.

"If I hadn't pulled up next to them, I would not have really been able to make it out," said Howard, a deputy sheriff for 7 1/2 years. It was dressed "really good."

At a news conference, Howard said that as he pulled Frascinella over, she kept "pointing to the passenger."

Frascinella was angry at being stopped, he said. "She kept saying she wasn't doing anything wrong," Howard said. "So when I asked her for her license and registration, I also asked her for ID for her passenger."

Later in the day, a young man answering the door at Frascinella's Biscayne Drive home in Mount Sinai told a reporter, "You need to leave!" and slammed the door.

Howard said this is the second ticket he's written for driving with a fake passenger. "Usually, it's not so elaborate," he said.

Mike Sharkey, the department's chief of staff, said he hears of such "fake passenger" attempts maybe a half-dozen times a year.

The violation is taken seriously "because unchecked abuses of this type can lead to serious traffic congestion," the sheriff's office said in a release.

"At first glance, this may seem humorous, but it is not a joking matter when you drive off with a ticket," Sheriff Vincent F. DeMarco said in a statement.

With Matthew Chayes and Carl MacGowan

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