Ex-N.Y. trooper staged his own shooting for attention or sympathy, prosecutors say

A former New York state trooper who claimed he had been shot on a Long Island highway by an unknown gunman, setting off a multistate manhunt, actually shot himself and took the gun to his home, a prosecutor said Monday.

Thomas Mascia and his parents surrendered Monday to state police on Long Island, according to an agency spokesperson.

Mascia, 27, was charged with tampering with evidence, false reporting of a crime and official misconduct. His parents, Dorothy Mascia, 55, and Thomas Mascia, 62, a former New York Police Department officer, were each charged with one count of criminal possession of a firearm because a semiautomatic rifle with illegal modifications was found in their bedroom, prosecutors said.

The gun is not the one Mascia is alleged to have used to shoot himself, according to prosecutors. As a convicted felon, his father is not legally allowed to own a gun, officials said.

All three pleaded not guilty and were released on their own recognizance. Their next court day is scheduled for Feb. 5.

A lawyer for the Mascia family, Jeffrey Lichtman, said Mascia has been suffering from “untreated mental health issues” for years.

“There are many less severe and less dangerous ways to garner sympathy that don’t include shooting oneself,” he said. “This case is a tragedy that was caused by unseen and untreated mental health issues. And now an entire family is suffering for it as they usually do in such situations.”

An investigation by the state police and the district attorney’s office found no evidence to substantiate Mascia’s claim that he had stopped in the median of the parkway to check on a disabled vehicle, the state police said Monday, adding that a subsequent search of the family’s home recovered a firearm that was illegally possessed.

Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said at a news conference Monday that Mascia staged the Oct. 30 shooting hours before he reported being shot.

He dropped .22-caliber shell casings on the shoulder of the Southern State Parkway in West Hempstead and later drove to Hempstead Lake State Park, where he shot himself in the leg, officials said.

He then brought the gun to his home he shared with his parents and drove back to the parkway to report he had been shot, according to officials.

His claim set off a manhunt involving law enforcement from New York, New Jersey and Delaware, Donnelly said.

Prosecutors said in the criminal complaint against Mascia that his actions caused state police to “temporarily shut down the Southern State Parkway in an effort to locate the nonexistent shooter, causing alarm and inconvenience to the public.”

Mascia had claimed that he had approached what he believed to be a stranded motorist and that, as he did so, he was shot by a dark-skinned male in a black sedan, possibly a Dodge Charger, with a temporary New Jersey license plate.

Donnelly said state police conducted extensive video canvassing to try to find the vehicle Mascia claimed the alleged assailant was driving but could not locate it. Nine shell casings were found at the scene, but no projectiles were recovered, she said. Investigators were able to determine Mascia had shot himself at the park through GPS and other technology, Donnelly said.

“The evidence uncovered and the absence of evidence told us everything we needed to know,” the district attorney said. “Even though Mascia tried to hide his tracks, it didn’t take long for everyone to uncover that his harrowing story was nothing more than an elaborate work of fiction.”

She added: “He knew the fear that it would create. But he did it anyway. Whether for sympathy, attention, to ease a wounded ego, what he did is unconscionable.”

He was treated for a gunshot wound to his right leg, and law enforcement held a ceremony for him when he was released from the hospital a day after the shooting.

“Law enforcement throughout Long Island celebrated that he was safe and we vowed to find the dangerous individual who shot him,” Donnelly said. “But we never would. Because the shooter that we were all looking for only existed in Mascia’s head. In his imagination.”

Mascia, who became a trooper in 2019, had been suspended without pay since early November, when state police announced that they had launched an investigation into the shooting and that no one was being sought.

State Police Superintendent Steven James said Mascia resigned Friday. He called Mascia’s conduct “egregious” and said it “harmed the reputation of law enforcement in general.”

“What I will make clear is that the State Police, we do not tolerate such conduct, especially wrongdoing when a member breaks the law,” James said at the news conference.