Fugitive extradited from Indian to face charges in 20-year-old car wreck that killed Long Island dad: DA

A 54-year-old fugitive who took off to India after a brutal Long Island car wreck that killed a doting dad more than 20 years ago was finally extradited and is now facing justice, prosecutors said Monday.

Ganesh Shenoy, who skipped out on felony charges and boarded a plane to Mumbai just two weeks after the April 11, 2005, crash in Hicksville that killed 44-year-old Philip Mastropolo, was arraigned on manslaughter charges Friday and ordered held without bail, the Nassau County DA’s office said.

“For decades, Philip’s family has lived with the pain of his loss and the knowledge that the man responsible for his death was half a world away,” Republican Nassau District Attorney Anne Donnelly said in a statement. “But not anymore.

“Ganesh Shenoy will be held responsible for his alleged actions, and my office will get justice for Philip and his family.”

Mastropolo was on his way to work as a maintenance engineer around 6 a.m. when a 1993 Volvo allegedly driven by Shenoy at twice the speed limit blew through a red light on Levittown Parkway and slammed into his Cadillac, killing Mastropolo on the spot.

The impact was so violent that Mastropolo’s car skidded for 65 feet and slammed into a box truck that was stopped at the traffic light, prosecutors said.

Shenoy, who declined medical treatment at a local hospital, was charged and forced to surrender his Indian passport and driver’s license — but he didn’t hang around to face the music.

On April 25, 2005, he jumped on a flight at JFK airport and slipped away, later landing at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai and dodging the law for more than two decades.

A Nassau County grand jury voted to indict Shenoy on Aug. 8, 2005, even as he remained on the lam.

It wasn’t until this week that the US Marshals Service tracked him down and returned him to Long Island on Thursday, a day before he was arraigned and ordered held without bail.

The DA’s office said the US Department of Justice and US Embassy in India helped return Shenoy stateside.

Shenoy is due back in court on Oct. 14.

“After decades of evading law enforcement and dodging prosecution, my office finally returned this defendant to the United States to answer for the tragic death of a husband and father of two more than 20 years ago,” Donnelly said.