Metro

Mother arrested for driving drunk with her 3 young children

A Long Island mom from hell spent Mother’s Day in the drunk tank after she crashed her car load of kids into a telephone pole and then tried to take them by the hand and run from the scene, cops said.

Sarah Knakal, 30, was allegedly driving drunk on East Jericho Turnpike in Suffolk County Saturday when she slammed into a pole and signpost with her SUV at around 6 p.m., according to Suffolk County police.

The woman then turned her kids, ages 5, 7 and 9, into tiny fugitives — as she rounded them up and fled the crash site on foot, police said.

The runaway family didn’t get far. Cops tracked Knakal and her kids down about 10 minutes later near a store on East Jericho Turnpike, authorities said.

Knakal allegedly capped her bizarre rampage off by shoving the officer who approached to question her, according to Newsday. No one was injured in the crash.

The stay-at-home mom was charged under Leandra’s Law, a 2009 law making drunk driving with a child a felony.

She plead not guilty to the aggravated DWI charge Sunday and was held on $90,000 bail, the paper said.

Her attorney, Jerome Binder, said Knakal had not been drinking. “She would never endanger her children knowingly,” he said.

“The blood test has not come back. There is no evidence that she was intoxicated.”

Binder said that he has known Knakal for nearly 20 years and that type of behavior would be very “out of character” for her.

Knakal was not charged in regard to the altercation with the police officer.

Child Protective Services was notified and the children were turned over to Knakal’s husband, who lives at a separate address.

The husband, Ryan Knakal, 32, also attended the court appearance and was supportive of his wife, whom he called a “great mother.”

A Facebook images for the mom showed three young girls smiling and laughing.

Neighbors of the woman in Huntington Station, however, paint a less rosy picture, saying they frequently hear loud arguments from the home.

“There are always arguments and fighting going on and it rages on through the night,” said one neighbor who asked not to be named. “It’s really sad. I almost called the cops myself one night
because I heard the children screaming.”

Because of an order of protection, Knakal was not able to see her three children on Mother’s Day.