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SMASHUP DAD’S SAD DELUSIONS

He swore she wasn’t a drinker and their marriage wasn’t on the rocks.

The husband of the Long Island mother who killed four children, three adults and herself in a wrong-way crash on the Taconic State Parkway yesterday flat-out rejected scientific evidence that she was bombed on booze and pot.

Taconic Crash Gallery

At a press conference, Daniel Schuler:

* DENIED his wife, Diane, was a drunk as he desperately tried to shoot down a Post report that she regularly swilled vodka at a Long Island bar. “She did not drink. She is not an alcoholic,” he insisted. “I never saw her drunk since the day I met her.”

* DENIED she felt her life and marriage were crumbling. One of Diane’s drinking buddies said her pal felt “trapped” in her marriage. “Absolutely not,” her husband said. “I loved my wife, and we loved each other.”

* DENIED she would ever drive with her kids and nieces if she were impaired. “She was a perfect wife, upstanding mother, a hard worker, reliable person, trustworthy,” Schuler insisted. “I’d marry her again tomorrow.”

“I go to bed every night knowing my heart is clear,” he said.

Schuler, of West Babylon, shared the stage with his lawyer, Dominic Barbara, who had several bizarre explanations for the horrific July 26 crash in Westchester County. The head-on collision claimed the lives of Diane, her young daughter, her three nieces and three men in another vehicle. Her 5-year-old son was the only survivor.

Barbara listed an odd array of ailments that he said could have thrown her off the deep end. They included a possible stroke, a prior case of gestational diabetes, a two-month-old abscessed tooth and a “lump on her leg” that “was moving.”

Schuler was in denial during the entire press conference.

Asked about toxicology tests — which revealed Diane’s staggering .19 blood-alcohol level and heavy marijuana use — Schuler said they were “not true.”

He spoke the day The Post reported that a drinking buddy of Diane’s said, “She liked her drinks, she liked her vodka.”

A 1.75-liter bottle of Absolut vodka was found in Diane’s minivan after the crash.

Though Schuler swore his wife wasn’t a boozer, he admitted he works a night shift and the kids were often left with a nanny.

The bar friend, who asked to be identified only as “Sheila,” said Diane, 36, would complain that “her marriage seemed a bit rocky, and I think she felt trapped by it . . . for the last couple of months. She didn’t appear to be a happy person.”

Barbara refused to allow questions about Diane’s marijuana use, citing Daniel’s job as a Nassau County public safety officer.

He proclaimed: “Marijuana use is not a crime anymore. It’s a public health violation.”

Traces of marijuana in Diane’s bloodstream indicated she smoked as recently as 15 minutes before the tragedy. Daniel has told cops she smoked pot occasionally and was a social drinker.

When Daniel was asked whether Diane could have been a closet drunk, Barbara snapped, “Next question!”

Barbara backed off a report that Daniel would have his wife’s body exhumed for a second autopsy. “We have not yet decided to have a new autopsy,” he said.

The autopsy by the Westchester County medical examiner found no evidence of a medical condition — such as heart attack, stroke, aneurysm or diabetes — that could have led to the crash. The office stood by its findings.

Despite the evidence, Barbara said, “I think something happened, something happened to her brain,” which caused Diane to drive erratically.

“This was not a woman who would jeopardize five children” by knowingly driving intoxicated, Barbara said.

Daniel refused to attend a scheduled meeting with State Police investigators, but probers met with the family of Diane’s brother, Warren Hance, whose three young daughters died in the crash.

kieran.crowley@nypost.com