A teary-eyed Jim Leyritz met with his lawyer yesterday, as the family of the woman he allegedly killed while driving drunk planned her funeral.
The former Yankee – who’s accused of smashing into a car driven by Fredia Veitch at 3:20 a.m. Friday, shortly after his 44th-birthday bash in a Fort Lauderdale club – consulted with the attorney for an hour before racing off in a silver Hummer with a mystery blonde.
At the party, the slugger drank Grey Goose vodka and tonics, said his pal, Playboy model Erica Chevillar.
“There were a lot of us partying,” she said. “Everyone was drinking.”
Responders found Leyritz bleary eyed, red faced and reeking of booze, cops said.
Jordan Veitch, meanwhile, slammed Leyritz for robbing him of his wife and his children of their mom.
“If we didn’t have drunk driving, I wouldn’t have to explain why my son’s not going to have a mother,” Veitch, 29, said, adding that his 30-year-old wife was “a beautiful woman and a wonderful mother.”
He said Julian, 5, keeps asking, “Why hasn’t mommy come home? Will mommy be in the grass? Who’s going to take care of me?”
Cops said Leyritz ran a red light before crashing his 2006 Ford Expedition into Veitch’s Mitsubishi.
Just minutes earlier, Veitch, who also leaves a 13-year-old daughter from a prior relationship, had called her husband to say she had finished her waitressing shift at the Original Steakhouse in Fort Lauderdale.
Her last words to him were “I’ll be home in 15 minutes.”
A day later, her relatives were making funeral arrangements.
She had given notice to quit her job, planning to become a stay-at-home mom and hoping to add another child to the family.
Leyritz is free on $11,000 bail, charged with DUI manslaughter.
“I lost my wife, and this guy was out of jail in nine hours,” fumed Jordan Veitch, who said he was planning to sue.
Leyritz’s agent, Andrew Levy, said the ex-ballplayer visited with his three children yesterday and was reeling from the accident. He could get hit with a maximum of 15 years in prison.
“When I spoke to him, he was distraught about what happened,” Levy said. “He was looking at what he had to do now.”
Additional reporting byLisa Lucas and Angela Montefinise