The husband of Taconic State Parkway drunken-driving terror Diane Schuler also hit the booze hard before getting behind the wheel.
Daniel Schuler last week tearfully defended his wife Diane against toxicology results that showed she was sloshed and stoned when she crashed her minivan, killing herself and seven others. But he was once arrested for DWI, according to court records.
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He was busted by Nassau County police on Oct. 14, 1995, while driving his white 1991 Plymouth from one bar to another 30 minutes away, a police report said.
Cops pulled over a soused Schuler at 8:20 p.m. on a rainy Wednesday after observing him weaving through traffic and driving over a double yellow line in Wantagh, LI.
The arresting officer, John Speelman, documented in his report that Schuler had “glassy eyes,” was “swaying” and had “impaired motor condition.”
During the traffic stop, Schuler told officers he had knocked back five Budweisers at McMurphy’s Bar, a Wantagh dive, and was on his way to another pub, Lily Flanagan’s in Islip.
Nearly two hours after the stop, Schuler registered .113 percent blood alcohol content — well over what was then the legal limit of .10 percent — on a breath test, according to the police report.
Schuler, then 24, was charged with driving drunk, but as a first-time offender was allowed to plea the misdemeanor down to a violation.
His driver’s license was suspended for 90 days, and he paid a $325 fine. He served no jail time, other than the hours he spent drying out in the clink immediately after his arrest.
Dominic Barbara, the Long Island lawyer representing Schuler while cops probe his wife’s crash, said the 1995 arrest had no bearing on the Taconic Parkway tragedy.
“I don’t see the relevancy to this incident,” Barbara said, declining further comment.
But the revelation of Daniel Schuler’s own DWI arrest added to the couple’s questionable history with alcohol, and angered the families of the three Yonkers men killed when the Schuler minivan crashed into their SUV — Michael Bastardi, 81, his son 49-year-old son, Guy, and their friend Daniel Longo, 74.
The Bastardi family has hired a lawyer and said they may sue Diane Schuler’s kin for knowing she was an alcoholic but not stopping her from driving. They have also scoffed at her husband’s denial that Diane Schuler wasn’t smashed on vodka and weed.
Investigators have said that Schuler, a peace officer with the Nassau County Police Department, has provided them with limited information about his wife’s state of mind in the hours before the crash. Barbara also blocked State Police from re-interviewing him on Thursday.
While there were no casualties in Daniel Schuler’s boozy 1995 ride, his wife’s wrong-way drive on July 26 killed their 2-year-old daughter and their three nieces in the family’s Ford Windstar. The Schulers’ 5-year-old son, Bryan, was critically injured.
Toxicology tests showed Diane Schuler, a 36-year-old Cablevision manager, had a .19 percent blood-alcohol level — nearly 2½ times today’s .08 percent legal limit — and had smoked pot within an hour of the tragedy.
The alcohol level in her bloodstream was equivalent to 10 shots of liquor, and undigested alcohol was found in her stomach. Investigators also found a broken 1.75-liter bottle of Absolut vodka inside her wrecked vehicle.
Daniel Schuler said his wife was sober the morning they left a Sullivan County campsite to return to their West Babylon, LI home — she in the minivan with the kids and he in a pickup.
Additional reporting by C.J. Sullivan