Riordan Cavooris, 6, still recovering 4 years after off-duty Suffolk officer David Mascarella slammed truck into family's car 

The Cavooris family visited pastoral grounds near their Smithtown home to meet the animals a nonprofit nursed back to health. The drive-up event, one afternoon during the pandemic, featured a bunny, hedgehog and crow. But it was the owl that made Riordan, then 2, proclaim, ‘That’s my favorite!’ " recalled his mother, Valerie.

Staff at Sweetbriar Nature Center explained that particular owl had been hit by a car and suffered neurological injuries. Inexplicably, the same would happen to Riordan a month later when an off-duty Suffolk police officer — who'd been drinking but refused breath tests — slammed his pickup into his father Kevin’s subcompact as they drove home from day care.

A surgeon put Riordan into a medically induced coma to repair multiple skull fractures. He had to relearn how to swallow, speak, stand.

"We explained to him he needed to be in the hospital to help with his injury, in the same way the owl he liked at Sweetbriar needed to be there to help with its injury," Valerie Cavooris said of Riordan’s seven-week ordeal of intensive care and inpatient rehabilitation following the August 2020 crash in St. James.

Four years later, the boy still struggles to run and jump like his peers. He wears a molded orthotic ankle brace, adorned with colorful jellyfish, to correct his gait. But in context of doctors once doubting he'd ever walk or talk again, Riordan’s recovery has been remarkable, say Valerie and Kevin Cavooris. He swims and plays soccer. His speech at the start of kindergarten matched an 18-month-old’s, but with regular therapy, has nearly caught up to a typical 6-year-old first grader.

And now, the boy’s parents have taken the owl metaphor from their lowest days and given it a lasting meaning beyond their household.

The Cavooris family helped fund Sweetbriar's new flying cage for rehabbing birds of prey, according to the nonprofit. Caring for about 100 such birds a year, the organization's leaders had long desired an outdoor flying structure designed to keep smaller specimens, such as screech owls, away from hawks and eagles, but lacked the money, said Janine Bendicksen, the director of wildlife rehabilitation.

"This has always been a dream for us," Bendicksen said on a recent frigid morning at Sweetbriar’s Smithtown property, standing outside the enclosure that will soon have a plaque dedicated to its largest benefactors, including the Cavoorises. "A lot of our cages were falling apart."

Kevin, 37, a data analyst, and Valerie Cavooris, 38, who works in marketing, now live in Massachusetts. They said they reached out to Sweetbriar after reflecting on how Riordan was soothed by stories comparing his care to the injured owl’s.

A "Hope for Riordan" GoFundMe campaign raised nearly $60,000 in the months following the crash, according to the still-live page. And while Cavooris said Riordan's specialized medical care strained their finances, it has slowly become more predictable, allowing some budget relief.

"We can finally carve out a way to give back to the community that was so good to us," Kevin Cavooris said, dubbing the nonprofit’s need for a facility to aid birds hurt by cars "serendipitous," given the connection to Riordan.

Bendicksen said the new flight cage project cost about $45,000 and the Cavoorises provided among the largest single donations. The family, which returned to Long Island in late summer to visit the completed structure, requested the specific amount be undisclosed.

"It’s all kind of a very poetic justice," Valerie Cavooris said.

'Pure determination'

Kevin and Valerie Cavooris spoke to Newsday this month from suburban Boston, holding hands as they sat together in the living room of a home Kevin’s parents recently purchased to be closer to their grandchildren. Downstairs, the joyous din of Riordan and his older brother, Bastian, 8, playing with dinosaur figures, pool noodles and a large cardboard appliance box interrupted the infrequent silences. 

Since Newsday first reported on the collision and its impact, the family has grown.

Little sister Vera, now 2, arrived in 2022.

Kevin and Valerie Cavooris settled a personal injury lawsuit they filed individually against the off-duty officer, David Mascarella, for a sum that is under seal in the court case and that they declined to disclose.

No criminal charges were filed. They also recently learned from Newsday that an arbitrator rejected Suffolk's attempts to fire Mascarella for what they alleged was "egregious" misconduct in causing the crash and refusing the breath tests. The officer has been back on the job since October 2023.

Mascarella's lawyer, William Petrillo, told Newsday that the officer "prays for the family regularly" and called them "innocent victims."

Valerie Cavooris said she tries not to think about the outcome of the criminal and internal investigations. 

"It pops in my head every now and then. When someone brings it up. When I see Riordan struggling," she said. "It’s not fair that the person facing consequences is the person who did nothing wrong. But like Kev said, we try to put that out of our minds and focus on the progress and the positive."

That day, Riordan showed signs of both.

Wearing a black Game Boss shirt, Riordan was persistently in motion and regularly asked his parents when they’d be done with the interview. When he entered the house, he spotted his dad holding the left leg brace he’d already taken off for the day.

"I don’t want to put it on!" he protested.

"He’s pure determination, probably because he’s so stubborn," Kevin Cavooris said in crediting Riordan’s recovery. "He just knows he’s going to get it done, and he does."

A few days later, Riordan's physical therapist echoed the sentiment as she led the boy through one of his twice-weekly sessions of balance and coordination exercises, including yoga.

"He's doing everything that every other kid is doing," said Lorri Warren, a physical therapist with Dedham, Massachusetts, public schools, where Riordan attends elementary school. "The playground; he's climbing on structures. It's amazing."

Warren met Riordan when he moved to the district about a year after the crash, but has seen the photos of the boy in intensive care, unconscious and connected to multiple tubes.

"I've worked with people with traumatic brain injuries. To see his progress and where he's been able to get is pretty remarkable," Warren said. "I keep using the word remarkable, but he is remarkable, and almost like a miracle."

The Cavoorises lamented the system that allowed the officer to avoid criminal charges or termination, but Kevin said he can't speak to that "as much as I can speak to how we're raising our kids."

Valerie helped gather the kids' toys and coats, briefly allowing her disappointment in the investigatory outcomes as she spoke again of the way Sweetbriar has brought the story full circle. 

"If there’s no justice," she said, "at least there’s poetic justice." 

With Jeffrey Basinger

By Paul LaRocco

paul.larocco@newsday.com@paullarocco

Paul LaRocco is a reporter on the investigations desk. Since starting at Newsday in late 2010, he has also covered Nassau and Suffolk county politics and government and the Town of Oyster Bay.