On 11/11/23 at approximately 12:48 AM., Suffolk County Deputy Sheriffs stopped a vehicle on the Long Island Expressway in Brookhaven, NY, for speeding, failure to maintain a lane of travel, failure to use directional signals, and for displaying a partially unreadable and expired license plate.
The driver, Matthew Bunai, 28, of Shirley, NY, demonstrated clues while performing standardized field sobriety tests indicating he was intoxicated. There was a six-year-old child in the rear seat behind the driver seat.
At approximately 1:08 AM Bunai was arrested and transported to the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office Headquarters Bureau in Riverhead, NY, where he submitted to a chemical blood test. The results of the blood test are pending laboratory results by the Suffolk County Crime Laboratory. The vehicle was impounded.
Bunai was charged with Aggravated DWI with a Child (Leandra’s Law), Endangering the Welfare of a Child, and various traffic violations.
Leandra’s Law (the Child Passenger Protection Act) is a NYS law making it an automatic felony on the first offense to drive drunk with a person aged 15 or younger inside the vehicle. It was named after 11-year-old Leandra Rosado who was killed on the Henry Hudson Parkway on October 11, 2009, when she was the passenger in a car accident, driven by a driver who was allegedly driving while intoxicated.
Also arrested for Driving While Intoxicated over the weekend were:
- Juan Castillo-Escobar, 42, of Brentwood, arrested for Aggravated DWI with a .19 BAC
- Edgar Sanchez Coello, 24, of Patchogue, arrested for DWI with a .16 BAC
- Linda Balsano, 61, of Shoreham, arrested for DWI with a .17 BAC
- Kayla Horsley, 27, of Riverhead, arrested for DWI with a .12 BAC
Suffolk County Sheriff Errol D. Toulon, Jr. commends his deputies. “Suffolk County Deputy Sheriffs are out patrolling our county’s roads to keep the public safe. This weekend, they not only prevented five intoxicated drivers from causing an accident with another driver or a pedestrian, but they potentially saved the life of a child passenger. I am proud of their ongoing vigilance in protecting the residents of Suffolk County.”
For more information, visit www.suffolksheriff.com.
All information contained in this release has been provided for general informational purposes only. To the extent that pending criminal matters are discussed, all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
