A 51-year-old Hempstead man pleaded guilty Monday to aggravated vehicular assault and two additional charges after driving the wrong way on the Long Island Expressway and slamming head-on into another vehicle, fracturing a driver’s tibia and dislocating his hip.
Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly announced the April 20 guilty plea entered in Nassau County court. Jorge Arias Reyes, who faces five to nine years in state prison, is scheduled for sentencing on June 12.
The crash itself happened on the night of May 18, 2025. Reyes was driving a 2009 Honda Odyssey westbound in the eastbound lanes of the LIE near Exit 37 in Roslyn, according to Donnelly’s office. He didn’t stray a few feet across a dividing line. He drove against traffic for several miles, sideswiped at least one vehicle, and then hit a 2014 Toyota Prius head-on. The Prius driver, also 51, was transported to a hospital with a fractured tibia and a dislocated hip.
When hospital staff drew blood from Reyes, his blood alcohol content came back at .26 percent. New York’s legal limit is .08 percent. He was more than three times over the limit.
“Cases like this one represent exactly the conduct our office will pursue to the fullest extent available under the law,” Donnelly said in a statement released by her office.
Anybody who’s driven the LIE through Roslyn at night knows that stretch doesn’t forgive mistakes. Traffic moves at highway speed. Sight lines tighten after dark. A vehicle coming at you in your own lane at 60 miles per hour doesn’t give you 10,000 milliseconds to think. The fact that the Prius driver left that scene with a broken leg rather than something far worse is, frankly, a matter of luck.
Reyes pleaded guilty to three charges: aggravated vehicular assault, assault, and aggravated driving while intoxicated, according to the Long Island Press. Aggravated vehicular assault is a class C felony under New York law. That’s the charge prosecutors use when a drunk driver causes serious physical injury. It isn’t a reduced plea. It isn’t a violation with a fine and a court-ordered class.
The New York State Department of Transportation tracks wrong-way driving incidents on state highways and has flagged the LIE corridor repeatedly in safety reviews. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has documented that wrong-way crashes, while rare compared to total accident volume, account for a disproportionate share of fatal collisions because of the head-on dynamics involved. A BAC of .26 doesn’t make you a bad driver. It makes you functionally incapacitated.
DA Donnelly’s office has pressed drunk driving cases hard across Nassau County, making impaired driving an explicit enforcement priority since she took office in 2022. That’s not just a posture for press releases. Sprawl and car dependency mean Long Island roads carry a constant mix of commuters, shift workers, and late-night drivers. Someone behind the wheel at .26 percent on the LIE isn’t making a personal mistake in isolation. They’re sending a vehicle at highway speed into lanes shared with everyone who can’t see them coming.
This case didn’t need much forensic reconstruction. There’s no ambiguity in the evidence when a driver is going the wrong direction for miles, sideswiping cars, and registering a BAC more than three times the legal limit. The 2009 Odyssey wasn’t a mystery. The blood draw wasn’t contested. The 2014 Prius didn’t drift into him.
What happens at the June 12 sentencing will determine where within the five-to-nine-year range Reyes lands. Nassau County judges weigh prior record, cooperation, and the severity of injuries sustained by the victim. A fractured tibia and a dislocated hip are classified as serious physical injuries under New York penal law, which is why aggravated vehicular assault applies rather than a lesser count. The victim’s recovery timeline and long-term impact can also factor into sentencing arguments by the prosecution.
Reyes was 51 at the time of the May 18, 2025 crash. The victim was also 51. One of them made a choice that night, and the other was simply driving in the correct lane on the LIE near Exit 37 in Roslyn, heading home.