The 22-year-old driver charged in a DWI car crash that killed three relatives of a girl celebrating her Sweet 16 party at The Inn in New Hyde Park Saturday night was still hospitalized Tuesday and ordered held without bail, his lawyer and officials said.
Dante Lennon of Freeport was behind the wheel of a speeding 2012 Mercedes-Benz sedan that struck a 2010 Lincoln Town Car carrying six people outside of the Inn on the eastbound lane of Jericho Turnpike, police said. Detectives responded to the collision shortly after 11 p.m., officials said.
The three backseat passengers—Marlene Lu and Ho Hua, both of Queens, and Tu Nguyen from North Carolina—were pronounced dead at the scene. The driver and two other passengers in the Lincoln were taken to local hospitals and were in stable condition, officials said.
Officials said the women were leaving a Sweet 16 celebration at the venue prior to the crash. Police said Lu was the mother of the host of the Sweet 16 party, while Hua was the host’s aunt and Nguyen the host’s cousin.
Lennon was charged on Monday with three counts of second-degree manslaughter, second-degree assault, second-degree vehicular assault and driving while impaired, police said.
According to court documents, Lennon acknowledged he had consumed alcoholic beverages before driving. His preliminary blood alcohol content of .88% was higher than the legal limit of .08%, according to the documents.
Lennon’s attorney, Robert C. Gottlieb, described his client as “a very good and decent young man who is distraught by what happened,” to Newsday.
The driver was hospitalized at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset with nonlife-threatening injuries, a spokesman from the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office said. Lennon was ordered held without bail Monday by a Nassau County judge, but officials said he remained at North Shore University Hospital and was ordered to return to court Wednesday.
An investigation into the incident remained ongoing, officials said. Officials said they are trying to determine how fast Lennon was driving at the time of the crash.
Police said the other individuals in the Lincoln were a 73-year-old man, a 67-year-old man and a 42-year-old man. The 67-year-old man fractured his clavicle and the 42-year-old man fractured his ribs and both were hospitalized after the accident, police said. The 73-year-old man had been discharged from the hospital Monday after suffering neck and back pain, according to officials.
Michael McCutchen, a security guard at The Inn who opened the door for the guests and saw them leave the spot Saturday night, told Newsday the crash “sounded like a bomb went off.”
Efforts to reach a representative from The Inn at New Hyde Park or officials from the Nassau County Police Department for further comment were unavailing.
Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said the police department plans on starting an initiative to “take back” the roads and crackdown on traffic infractions such as speeding and drunk driving.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman described the incident as “a horrible tragedy” and said a press conference was scheduled prior to Memorial Day to remind the public of the dangers of drunk driving.