Suffolk prosecutor Priyanka Seth takes the stand in alleged DWI case after judge issues a subpoena

A Suffolk prosecutor was placed in the unusual position of taking the witness stand Monday after a judge issued a subpoena for her to testify at a hearing challenging evidence in an aggravated vehicular homicide case.

Assistant District Attorney Priyanka Seth testified as attorneys for John Ankelman seek to suppress a court-ordered blood test that allegedly revealed he was driving with a blood-alcohol content more than double the legal limit at the time of the Dec. 26 crash that killed Army veteran Nelson Gonzalez.

Defense attorney Steven Politi, of Central Islip, took the rare step of calling Seth as a defense witness after identifying what he perceived to be “material misstatements” made to a judge on an application she prepared to secure the warrant. Politi said the filing stated an officer warned Ankelman of the consequences of refusing to submit to a chemical test, but video evidence played during the hearing failed to show those warnings took place.

“The issue is whether or not the court believes that those representations we claim are false are enough to make the warrant, in layman’s terms, not good,” Politi said outside the courtroom Monday.

The defense attorney intends to argue in court papers due next month that the blood-alcohol evidence should therefore be excluded, which he said would likely lead to a dismissal of the top charge of aggravated vehicular homicide.

The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office deferred comment on the matter to the Queens District Attorney’s Office, which is serving as special prosecutor in the case before State Supreme Court Justice John Collins in Riverhead due to Ankelman’s involvement with a Suffolk prosecutor he described to police as his girlfriend.

A spokesperson for Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz declined to comment on the case.

Collins ordered both sides to file written summations Nov. 30 before he issues a decision on the blood warrant and other outstanding pretrial issues. A trial would be held no earlier than February, the judge said.

Collins said during Monday’s continuation of the hearing, which began Oct. 5, that he issued the subpoena for Seth to testify after her supervisors in the district attorney’s office, where her online resume shows she has worked since 2022, declined to make her available to speak with Politi last week. The judge said he believed Politi had “a right and a good reason” to question the prosecutor, who was on call to handle emergency warrant applications the evening of the crash. Collins said prior testimony from the police officer whose statement was included in the application “lacked memory and specification” of how the warrant was prepared.

Seth testified that she had not previously written a blood warrant application but that she had received training and a template to assist her in obtaining such warrants from a judge. She said the facts of the case were relayed to her directly from one of the officers involved in the arrest.

Gonzalez, 63, an Army and National Guard veteran, was killed while driving home to Brentwood from his job as a security guard in Melville, police said at the time. He was heading south on Pinelawn Road in Melville and attempting to turn onto Express Drive South in a snowstorm around 10 p.m. when his 2014 Toyota Tacoma was struck by a northbound 2025 Mazda CX-70 driven by Ankelman. Both drivers had green lights, according to police.

Suffolk police arrested Ankelman at the scene on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. He was later charged in an 11-count grand jury indictment.

Body camera footage played during the ongoing hearing showed Ankelman repeatedly ask to call his girlfriend, Jessica Spencer, deputy bureau chief of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s discovery bureau.

Politi said his client’s efforts to have police contact his girlfriend, whose number was saved on a cellphone that remained at the crash scene, amounts to him exercising his constitutional right to consult an attorney. He was never advised by police that those requests amounted to a refusal, Politi said.

The body camera footage also showed Ankelman told the arresting officers he was drinking with police at a Farmingdale bar in the hours leading up to the crash and that he mentioned the names of several top Long Island law enforcement officials.

The court-ordered test of Ankelman’s blood revealed an alleged blood-alcohol content of 0.18% five hours after the crash. New York State's legal limit is 0.08%.