They made a final toast to the future before an unthinkable tragedy.

Four close pals from New Jersey, including three cops, downed shots of whisky while dreaming of love during a wild night of strippers and sushi that ended in a deadly, wrong-way crash in Staten Island on Friday.

“Jack Daniels Fire on the house,” Linden police officer Pedro Abad Jr., 27, posted around midnight next to a photo of the stiff drinks.

“There’s a decent woman out there for each of us. Sure it’s cool to be single every now and then, but I don’t give a damn what ANYONE says. At the end of the day, I want a family. I want to settle down. We all do. So here’s to finding that which we all hope for.”

Less than five hours later, two of the men were killed when Abad drove his Honda Civic onto the West Shore Expressway in the wrong direction and slammed head on into a big rig around 5 a.m.

The devastating impact crumpled the car into a twisted heap — immediately killing Joseph Rodriguez, 28, who was in the front

passenger’s seat, police said.

Frank Viggiano, 28, a Linden cop seated in the right rear seat, died a short time later at Staten Island University Center, cops said.

Abad and his partner Patrick Kudlac, 23, survived and were both in critical condition at Staten Island University Hospital.

Abad whizzed past two “one way” signs and a “wrong way” sign — and drove nearly a mile north in the southbound lanes — before reaching the death scene near Exit 4, cops said.



Hours earlier, the friends began their night of revelry at Central Park Sushi and Sports Bar in Roselle, NJ.

Abad uploaded pictures to his Instagram showing the “East & West roll” he dined on before posting a photo of the three glasses of Jack Daniels Fire resting on a bar.

The party then moved to Staten Island, where they spent several hours at Curves Gentleman’s Club on Arthur Kill Road.

The “totally topless” strip joint advertises itself as “#1” in the borough and offers an array of VIP services — including lap dances and private rooms.

It is billed online as the perfect site for “bachelor parties, divorce parties, guys night out, whatever.”

Abad and his pals were regulars at Curves, according to his Instagram page, which shows him partying there on several occasions.

He also posted photos of himself cozying up to porn stars at the Exxxotica Expo in New Jersey last year.

On Friday, Abad’s group stayed at Curves until 4:45 a.m. before stumbling out to the Civic and heading back toward New Jersey.

Abad made a right turn onto Bloomingdale Road as he headed for the northbound lanes of the West Shore Expressway back toward the Goethals Bridge. But the driver’s fatal error came when he made a left turn onto an exit ramp that led him north on the southbound lanes, sources said.

A tractor trailer driver saw the sedan coming at him and swerved to avoid them, according to a source.

Another trucker also tried to maneuver his big-rig, but struck the car’s right side.

The driver of the tractor trailer suffered only minor injuries. NYPD investigators on Friday were reviewing surveillance from the strip club to see how much the men drank. There was no booze in the car, but doctors took Abad’s blood to test his alcohol level.

Linden Police Captain James Sarnicki was crushed to hear about the crash.

“These officers are all relatively young and relatively new to the force,” said “They had a vast amount of energy and they’re good police officers and our hearts go out to their families for what happened today.

“We were all young once and I’m sure we all did some stupid things in our life but with that being said, because this is an ongoing investigation, it would be way too premature to speculate about what caused the accident,” Sarnicki added. “When we learn from that we will take into account and we will move forward from there.”

Additional reporting by Frank Rosario, Jennifer Bain and Lorena Mongelli