The wrong-way driver blamed for a fatal crash on the Belt Parkway had twice been busted for drunken driving — and could’ve been behind bars instead of behind the wheel after a DWI conviction earlier this year.

Winston Ramdeen, 52, remained on the roads because Brooklyn prosecutors didn’t ask that he be jailed after a jury found him guilty in February of a 2021 wreck with a blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit, according to court records.

On Tuesday, police said Ramdeen was behind the wheel of a 2001 Infiniti QX4 on the Belt Parkway when he slammed head-on into a 2007 Nissan Sentra, killing himself and the unsuspecting 79-year-old driver of the other vehicle.

Both drivers were rushed to Brookdale University Medical Center, where they were pronounced dead, cops said.

“An innocent 79-year-old man was killed because the Brooklyn DA didn’t ask for the defendant to be remanded,” one law enforcement source told The Post on Wednesday.

“Do you think his family agrees with the decision?”

The deadly collision came just eight days before Ramdeen was scheduled to be sentenced in the earlier wreck after being found guilty of drunken driving at a Brooklyn trial on Feb. 16, records show.

In that case, Ramdeen was driving a 2011 Mercedes Benz when he smashed into the back of another car in Sheepshead Bay on July 4, 2021, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case.

The other driver told cops that Ramdeen displayed “slurred speech, red watery eyes, odor of alcoholic beverage on [his] breath and an unsteady gait,” the complaint said. When cops administered a breathalyzer Ramdeen had a blood-alcohol level of .239, nearly triple the state legal limit of .08.

Ramdeen remained free without bail when the case went to court because the charge is not eligible for bail under the state’s controversial 2019 criminal justice reforms — until he was found guilty.

Brooklyn prosecutors said they still opted not to seek to have him jailed or held on bail after the verdict because he had consistently shown up for his court appearances and was facing little jail time — with sources saying the DA’s office planned to ask for a 6-month sentence next week.

Former Manhattan prosecutor Michael Bachner agreed that a judge would’ve likely declined to lock Ramdeen up on a misdemeanor conviction — nor is it common for prosecutors to ask.

But Bachner said there may have been options to keep Ramdeen from getting behind the wheel.

“I don’t know what the conditions of his release are,” he said. “But, certainly, conditions could have been set if he was released whereby he should never have been able to see the inside of a car from the driver’s seat.”

The Brooklyn conviction was Ramdeen’s second drunken-driving bust, records show.

On Aug. 29, 2014, cops found him behind the wheel of a 1993 Honda on 120th Street in Queens, with a flat tire on the car and stopped alongside another vehicle that was damaged, records show.

Ramdeen told police he had “four drinks of vodka,” and blew a BAC of .195, more than double the legal limit, according to a complaint filed in that case.

Charged with drunken driving, Ramdeen pleaded guilty to driving while impaired on June 15, 2015, and had his license suspended for 90 days and was ordered to pay a $300 fine, prosecutors said.