Lie May 30 #gvqid0: Long Islander pleads guilty…

Long Islander pleads guilty to causing fatal three-car collision on the Long Isl on Lie May 30, 2025.

Updated May 30, 2025
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Map showing incident location at 40.7800, -73.3000 Incident location, Long Island

What Happened

Nassau County resident Reginald Nash, 26, of Lincoln Avenue in Roosevelt, pleaded guilty Thursday to aggravated vehicular homicide and assault for causing a fatal three-car collision on the Long Island Expressway in November 2023, according to the Queens District Attorney’s office. Nash admitted in Queens Supreme Court that he was driving at approximately 89 miles per hour with alcohol in his system when he crashed near the Greenpoint Avenue exit.

The crash occurred on November 19, 2023, at approximately 4:30 a.m., when Nash was driving a 2021 Honda Accord eastbound on the L.I.E. between Sunnyside and Blissville, prosecutors say. Nash slammed into a highway attenuator separating the highway from the Greenpoint Avenue exit, causing his Honda to spin clockwise and strike a Toyota RAV-4 driven by a 44-year-old man. The Toyota then spun and hit a Kia Telluride SUV driven by a 51-year-old man, according to the charges and indictment. The drivers of the Toyota and Kia were not injured.

Police from the 108th Precinct in Long Island City found the Honda Accord with extensive damage facing the wrong direction when they arrived on scene. Cameron Mency, 23, a passenger in Nash’s vehicle, was discovered lying on the left lane of the highway approximately 90 feet from the car and was unresponsive. Officers found Nash near the bumper of his vehicle attending to his 22-year-old fiancée Giselle Carchi, who was unconscious. Two other passengers, Nash’s sister Tiffany Cox, 36, and Crystal Ramos, 22, were both lying next to the driver’s side of the vehicle.

EMS rushed all four women to Elmhurst Hospital, but Mency sustained extensive head and body trauma and was pronounced dead shortly after arrival. Carchi suffered serious injuries and underwent multiple surgeries to her back, while Ramos sustained head and body trauma and underwent surgery for a fractured tibia and has not regained full mobility. Cox also sustained head and body trauma.

The investigation revealed Nash had a blood alcohol content of 0.12%, exceeding the legal threshold of 0.08%, according to prosecutors. A search warrant executed for the vehicle’s black box indicated the car was traveling at approximately 89 miles per hour five seconds before the fatal collision and that the brakes had not been engaged.

“The defendant caused a horrific three-vehicle crash that killed one of his passengers and left three others with serious injuries that required surgery,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said. “When drivers make the selfish choice to get behind the wheel after drinking and then speeding recklessly down a highway, they put countless lives at risk — including the lives of their own friends and family.”

Location & Road Context

The collision occurred on the eastbound Long Island Expressway near the Greenpoint Avenue exit, between the Queens neighborhoods of Blissville and Sunnyside. This section of the L.I.E. has recorded 126 incidents in traffic databases, with recent reports including various roadwork and construction activities. The crash happened in the early morning hours when traffic is typically lighter on this major thoroughfare connecting Long Island to Manhattan.

Nash pleaded guilty before Queens Supreme Court Justice Michael Hartofilis, who ordered him to return to court for sentencing on July 23. Nash is expected to be sentenced to 7 to 21 years in prison for the aggravated vehicular homicide and assault charges.

Broader Impact

“With this plea, we are ensuring accountability for the senseless loss of life and the pain and suffering inflicted,” DA Katz said. The case highlights the severe penalties for aggravated vehicular homicide in New York, which can result in sentences of up to 25 years when alcohol impairment and excessive speed combine to cause fatal crashes.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What should I do if I'm in a car accident Lie?

Call 911 immediately if anyone is injured or if the vehicles can't be moved safely off the roadway. Stay at the scene — leaving the scene of an accident with injuries is a crime under New York Vehicle and Traffic Law §600. Exchange license, registration, and insurance information with every other driver involved. Take photographs of every vehicle, the position of the vehicles before they're moved, all license plates, the road surface, traffic signs, and any visible injuries. Get the names and phone numbers of every witness — police often won't capture bystander witnesses on their own. Seek medical attention within 24 hours even if you feel fine; soft-tissue injuries and concussions can take a day or two to present, and a delayed medical visit weakens an injury claim. In Nassau County, NCPD responds outside of incorporated villages. In Suffolk County, SCPD covers the five western towns; East End towns have their own forces. New York State Police Troop L responds to accidents on state highways across both counties.

How long do I have to file a no-fault claim in New York?

Thirty days. New York Insurance Law §5102 requires you to file a Personal Injury Protection (PIP/no-fault) application with the insurer of the vehicle you were in (or, if you were a pedestrian or cyclist, with the insurer of the striking vehicle) within 30 days of the accident. Missing the 30-day deadline can void your no-fault benefits — that's up to $50,000 in medical bills and 80% of lost wages (capped at $2,000/month) per injured person. The form is the NF-2 application; your insurance carrier provides it on request. New York no-fault is a true PIP system: it pays regardless of who caused the crash.

What counts as a "serious injury" under New York law?

Under Insurance Law §5102(d), a "serious injury" is one that meets at least one of these categories: (1) death; (2) dismemberment; (3) significant disfigurement; (4) a fracture; (5) loss of a fetus; (6) permanent loss of use of a body organ, member, function, or system; (7) permanent consequential limitation of use of a body organ or member; (8) significant limitation of use of a body function or system; or (9) a medically determined injury that prevents the injured person from performing substantially all daily activities for at least 90 of the first 180 days following the accident. Only injuries that meet one of these nine categories create the right to sue the at-fault driver for pain and suffering damages — short of that threshold, recovery is limited to no-fault PIP benefits. Disputes over whether an injury meets the threshold are the single most-litigated issue in NY motor-vehicle cases.

How long do I have to sue after a Long Island car accident?

Three years from the date of the accident for personal injury claims under CPLR §214(5). Wrongful death claims have a two-year deadline under EPTL §5-4.1. If a government entity is involved (a county vehicle, a road defect on a state highway, a defective traffic signal, a county bus), you must file a Notice of Claim within 90 days under General Municipal Law §50-e — that's a non-negotiable jurisdictional deadline, and missing it usually bars the claim entirely. Property-damage-only claims have the same three-year clock. The clock starts on the day of the accident, not the day you discover the full extent of an injury.

Can I still recover compensation if I was partly at fault?

Yes. New York is a pure comparative negligence state under CPLR §1411. Even if you were 90% at fault, you can still recover 10% of your damages. (A pending 2026 budget proposal would change this to a 51% bar — meaning a plaintiff who is more than 50% at fault would recover nothing — but that hasn't passed.) Insurance carriers routinely try to inflate the injured driver's percentage of fault to reduce payouts. The percentage assignment is decided by the jury at trial (or negotiated during settlement); it isn't fixed by the police accident report and isn't binding even when the report assigns fault. Reporting practice and the actual legal apportionment are separate questions.

Who can file a wrongful death claim in New York?

Under EPTL §5-4.1, only the personal representative (executor or administrator) of the deceased's estate can bring a wrongful death action — not the deceased's family directly. The estate is opened in Surrogate's Court of the county where the deceased lived. Damages flow to the spouse, children, parents, and other distributees defined under EPTL §4-1.1. Recoverable damages include loss of financial support, loss of parental guidance for surviving children, and conscious pre-death pain and suffering (recovered through a separate "survival action" under EPTL §11-3.2). New York is unusual in NOT allowing surviving family members to recover for their own emotional grief — only economic losses to the estate. The wrongful-death two-year statute of limitations is shorter than the three-year personal-injury statute, so the deadline is critical.

How do I get a copy of the police accident report?

If local police responded to the scene, the report is filed under an MV-104A form. In New York State, you can request a copy through the DMV at https://dmv.ny.gov/vehicle-safety/get-copy-accident-report (roughly $7 online, $10 by mail) once the responding agency has uploaded it to the state system, which usually takes 5-10 business days. NCPD and SCPD also have their own direct-request processes through the precinct that responded. If you weren't injured but the property damage exceeded $1,000, New York VTL §605 requires you (the driver) to file your own MV-104 report with the DMV within 10 days regardless of whether police responded.

How dangerous is Lie ?

Long Island Traffic tracks every reported incident on this road across both counties — see the road profile page for the multi-year accident count, severity distribution, and the specific intersections that show repeated incident clusters. Suffolk and Nassau county roads with chronic problems are reviewed by their respective DOTs on a multi-year cadence; persistent issues are sometimes addressed with new signal phasing, lane-narrowing treatments, or — in extreme cases — a Vision Zero engineering response. Daily incident updates flow into our live-events feed every fifteen minutes.

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