Wrong-Way Drunken Driver Pleads Guilty To Fatal Crash: Nassau DA

MINEOLA, NY — A Freeport man pleaded guilty to a November 2022 wrong-way drunken driving crash that killed two men and seriously injured another in Massapequa Park, prosecutors said.

Juan De Leon Collado, 30, pleaded guilty on Monday to aggravated vehicular homicide, second-degree assault and aggravated driving while intoxicated.

"Two families were forever changed when the defendant made the reckless decision to drive after drinking at a local sports bar," said Nassau County DA Anne Donnelly said. "Juan De Leon Collado sped down Sunrise Highway into oncoming traffic and slammed into another vehicle, killing Nicholas Berardino Jr. and seriously injuring Nicholas’s cousin. Collado’s own cousin, Amaury Ramirez Lora, was also killed in the crash."

According to the charges, on November 6, 2022, at approximately 4:23 a.m., Collado was driving a 2003 Honda CRV westbound in the eastbound lanes of Sunrise Highway in Massapequa Park near Park Boulevard while intoxicated and at a high rate of speed. Collado’s cousin, 29-year-old Amaury Ramirez Lora, was in the front passenger seat of the vehicle.

The defendant continued driving in the wrong direction on Sunrise Highway for approximately a half-mile before striking a 2022 Honda Civic head-on driven by a 28-year-old man and carrying 24-year-old victim passenger Nicholas Berardino Jr., Donnelly said.

Collado is expected to be sentenced to 7 to 21 years in prison on January 29, Donnelly said.