Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly announced that a Freeport man pleaded guilty yesterday for a November 2022 wrong-way drunk driving crash that killed two men and seriously injured another in Massapequa Park.
Juan De Leon Collado, 30, pleaded guilty yesterday before Judge Howard Sturim to Aggravated Vehicular Homicide (a B felony); Assault in the Second Degree (a D violent felony); and Aggravated Driving While Intoxicated (an unclassified misdemeanor). The defendant is expected to be sentenced to 7 to 21 years in prison on January 29, 2024.
“Two families were forever changed when the defendant made the reckless decision to drive after drinking at a local sports bar,” said DA Donnelly. “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. Driving drunk is never the right choice, and on this night, it cost two innocent young lives. I continue to implore Nassau County residents: do not drink and drive.”
DA Donnelly said that, according to the charges, on November 6, 2022, at approximately 4:23 a.m., the defendant 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.
Both vehicles sustained extensive damage in the crash.
Berardino Jr. was pronounced deceased at the scene by Nassau County Police Department medics at 4:40 a.m.
The driver of the victim vehicle suffered extensive injuries, including a fractured hip, and was transported to Nassau University Medical Center.
Lora was trapped inside the Honda CRV and had to be extricated from the vehicle. The victim succumbed to his injuries on November 20, 2022, at NUMC.
The defendant was unconscious after the crash, removed by authorities, and transported to NUMC for injuries, including internal bleeding.
Collado had been drinking at a local sports bar in Farmingdale prior to the crash.
The defendant was arrested on November 6, 2022, by members of the NCPD.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Nicole Vota of the Vehicular Crimes Bureau. Collado is represented by Evans Prieston, Esq.
