Joseph DeVito of Wantagh was run over by Willem Specht in the parking lot of On Parade Diner in Woodbury

In the months after Joseph DeVito was run over and killed in a Woodbury diner’s parking lot, DeVito’s grown son, walking in the neighborhood where his mother lived, sometimes saw Willem Specht, the man who had been behind the wheel, not yet convicted.

Specht, who pleaded guilty last year to driving while intoxicated and other charges in the Jan. 18, 2023, crash outside the On Parade Diner, is now in prison. But "that was very hard to see," said DeVito’s son, Anthony DeVito, 37, of Wantagh.

Joseph DeVito was 61 years old when he was killed by Specht's "rapidly reversing" Infiniti as he stood on a sidewalk talking to a friend, authorities said.

He left a wife, two children, four grandchildren and a mother who was nearly 90. He was an ordained minister who’d built a general contracting firm into a successful business that did high-end residential jobs across Long Island.

A man who’d been working since he was 14 was finally going to take a break: to enjoy his grandchildren and to play golf, a sport at which his skill seemed to be increasing with age. The year before he was killed, he broke 80 strokes.

"There’s a lot of things we thought we’d have Dad around for," DeVito said. 

Specht's lawyer, Stephen LaMagna, said in an interview that DeVito's death was a "tragedy of immeasurable proportions." His client, he said, "took responsibility."

DeVito said the Christian faith he shared with his father called for forgiveness. But in a phone interview, he was adamant in calling for harsher penalties for repeat offenders, like Specht, including sanctions that make it impossible for them to register a vehicle or buy insurance.

He also backs bills that would lower the legal blood-alcohol limit from 0.08% to 0.05% and strengthen drugged driving laws.

"We don’t want to see this happen to anyone else," Anthony DeVito said.