Amy Wesolowski of Flanders sentenced to 1 to 3 years in prison for DWI crash that killed her 4-year-old daughter

A Suffolk judge on Wednesday sentenced a Flanders woman to 1 to 3 years in prison for driving high on prescription drugs in a January crash that killed her 4-year-old daughter.

State Supreme Court Justice Richard Ambro told Amy Wesolowski the sentence he was giving her for vehicular manslaughter was “simply a token.”

“You’ve already sentenced yourself to have to live with this the rest of your life,” Ambro said.

Assistant District Attorney James Curtin said at the sentencing in Riverhead that Wesolowski, who pleaded guilty to four charges in November, had abused a prescription amphetamine prior to the crash, which occurred as she made a left-hand turn into oncoming traffic out of her family’s driveway on Flanders Road the afternoon of Jan. 13. In the moments following the crash, passersby who rushed to assist at the scene asked Wesolowski if anyone else was in the Toyota SUV with her, the prosecutor told the judge.

“She couldn’t properly respond to them because she was too impaired,” Curtin said. “Civilians took it upon themselves to search the trunk of the vehicle to find the 4-year-old. She was thrown from the backseat of the vehicle into the trunk.”

Gracelyn Perkowski, Wesolowski’s youngest daughter and the only passenger in the car, died three days later at Stony Brook University Hospital.

Curtin said had the case gone to trial, prosecutors would have shown video of Wesolowski in the moments before and after the crash behaving “franticly and erratically." He said that as her daughter “battled for her life,” Wesolowski remained in the driver’s seat of her vehicle, “her feet on the dashboard, more concerned where her cellphone was than her daughter.”

“She was staring off into space as her child was laying on the ground 15 feet away getting CPR from bystanders,” Curtin said.

Wesolowski told the judge she will do “everything in my power” to remain sober moving forward.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

In a victim impact statement given to Ambro, John Perkowski, Gracelyn’s father and Wesolowski’s now-estranged husband, called Jan. 13 the “worst day of my life.”

“I don’t know if I can ever get over it,” he said before the more than 10 emotional friends and family members from both sides. Perkowski, who wore a pink sweatshirt with his daughter’s photo emblazoned on it, said Wesolowski has “shown no remorse, no respect” in the months since the crash.

Both Perkowski, who was at work at the time of the crash, and his mother Beverly, spoke of the hardships of raising Gracelyn’s 5-year-old sister, Kinley, in the aftermath of the tragedy.

In her victim impact statement, the grandmother spoke of finding Kinley in the room in her house where the siblings used to play, Gracelyn’s picture taped to the wall alongside a clipped-out magazine image of a mother and child. Kinley told her grandma she was talking to her sister, as she does each morning and night.

“You did this, Amy,” Beverly Perkowski told Wesolowski, who stood in front of her, looking straight ahead.

Beverly and John Perkowski — and Wesolowski — said they would trade places with Gracelyn if they could, but the judge offered a stark reminder.

“The two families in this courtroom deserve only one thing and I can’t do that, that’s to bring Gracelyn back,” Ambro said.

Prosecutors had recommended a sentence of between 2 1/3 to 7 years. Wesolowski also pleaded guilty to aggravated DWI with a child, endangering the welfare of a child and operating a motor vehicle while ability impaired by drugs.

Curtin said Wesolowski had been abusing a prescription amphetamine, with toxicology results showing more than twice the legal dosage in her system. Police previously told Newsday Wesolowski had been prescribed the amphetamine Adderall, a stimulant used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder 

Wesolowski, who had been free since the morning after the crash, was remanded back to jail following the sentencing. Her driver’s license will be suspended for one year following her release.

By Grant Parpan

grant.parpan@newsday.com@GrantParpan

Grant Parpan covers Suffolk County courts and federal courts for Newsday. A Long Island native, he joined Newsday in 2022.