Wrong-way driver Martin Heidgen: Families, Nassau DA oppose parole in deaths of Katie Flynn, 7, and limo driver Stanley Rabinowitz 

The families of 7-year-old flower girl Katie Flynn and limo driver Stanley Rabinowitz — both killed in 2005 by convicted wrong-way drunken driver Martin Heidgen — have joined the Nassau district attorney to oppose his release from prison ahead of a February parole board hearing.

Heidgen, 43, an insurance salesperson from Valley Stream, downed more than a dozen drinks on July 2, 2005, got behind the wheel of his pickup truck and drove more than two and half miles on the Meadowbrook Parkway before slamming into Rabinowitz and Flynn, who was returning from a family wedding with her family. Other family members were severely injured.

Prosecutors said that Heidgen admitted that he was going through financial, family and relationship difficulties at the time.

For the families of the girl and the driver, the upcoming hearing serves as a reminder of their loss and what they say is the lack of remorse that Heidgen has shown after taking the lives of their loved ones.

“It's just ridiculous,” the limo driver's son Keith Rabinowitz told Newsday. “My son never met his grandfather. It's painful, all of it. Katie and her family and all the carnage. He shouldn't have the opportunity to walk free again and have a family.”

This week, Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly released a letter she wrote over the summer detailing how Heidgen’s behavior and his statements after the crash show he’s not ready to be set free.

“In an unguarded letter, he sent to a friend presentence, he stated that he would drink again after release, but might not drive,” Donnelly wrote in her letter to the New York State Department of Corrections. “These are not the statements of a person who has truly accepted responsibility and can be trusted to return to society.”

Keith Rabinowitz said that he, his brother Nolan and other family members are writing their own letters opposing Heidgen's release.

Recently, he received a letter from Heidgen, he said, expressing remorse for the death of his father.

“He wrote a so-called apology and he got my stepmother's name wrong,” he said. “I don't even think he knew who my father was. I think he thought my father was someone else. It was a different Stanley Rabinowitz he was talking about. You're sitting in a jail cell, you have plenty of time to research. There's nothing sincere, obviously.”

Jennifer Flynn, Katie's mother, echoed that sentiment.

“He waited until it served his interest to send that apology,” she said. “Either way, it would make no difference to me.”

Flynn and her husband, Neil, who were also in the limo during the crash, said it had been difficult going on in the aftermath.

“It is by the Grace of God and the kindness and love of friends and family as well as thousands of strangers that have enabled us to make it through these last 18 1/2 years without our beautiful daughter, and we are incredibly grateful,” the couple said in an email. “However, we continue to believe that the penalty for murder in New York is woefully inadequate and that all murderers, no matter the method of their crimes, should receive much longer prison sentences than those currently applicable.”

Heidgen’s mother and father did not return calls for comment. His lawyer did not respond to emails or phone calls seeking a response from the prosecutor’s letter.

The upcoming date has been difficult for the Rabinowitz family.

Keith Rabinowitz said that the last time he saw his father, who was 59, was at his engagement party a week before the crash.

“He never got to meet his grandson,” he said. “It will be 19 years in June. It's another parole hearing. It's dredging up the painful memories again.”

He named his 16-year-old son, Stanley, in his father's honor.

“I remember my wife was feeling dizzy,” the son said, recalling a moment soon after the wreck.

“I said, that's it. You're pregnant. You're going to have a beautiful baby boy, and we're going to name him Stanley. It gives my father's soul some rest.” 

Donnelly said she was concerned over other Heidgen  comments that “prove insight into his character and his likelihood of reoffending.”

Heidgen told authorities  after the crash that he was in “self-destruct mode” due to his personal problems, which, according to Donnelly, show “exclusive self-concern after the act” and a “lack of remorse.”

“In his statement at sentencing, Heidgen characterized himself as one of the victims of the devastating crash rather than its exclusive cause,” Donnelly wrote.

Years after Heidgen was found guilty of murder, he was convicted again for trying to pass his cellmate’s saliva as his own DNA to fool authorities.

He lost a bid to overturn his convictions in 2011 and again in federal court in 2021.

Donnelly also pointed out that the crash was not  Heidgen's first time running afoul of the law while driving with alcohol. He was convicted in Mississippi for underage alcohol possession during a car stop in which he refused a sobriety test. 

“The loss of a child, father and husband and the lifetime effects of the serious injuries inflicted by Heidgen’s depraved acts on July 2, 2005, will have no end,” Donnelly said in her letter. “Time will not heal these wounds. For these reasons, I respectfully request that Heidgen be denied parole and that he remains incarcerated."

With Nicholas Spangler