A 28-year-old Valley Stream man is facing felony charges after Nassau County police say they pulled him over for swerving on Sunrise Highway and found a 3-year-old girl riding in his SUV while he was intoxicated. Elmer Martinez-Serrano was stopped near Brooklyn Avenue and Sixth Street in Valley Stream just before 11 p.m. on Saturday, and the child was later released to a family member unharmed.
According to Daily Voice, officers observed Martinez-Serrano failing to maintain his lane while driving a 2024 Honda CR-V westbound before executing the stop at 10:44 p.m. on September 5. Police determined he was intoxicated and took him into custody without incident, per Long Island Life & Politics, which reported that Martinez-Serrano lives on Derby Street in Valley Stream. The 3-year-old girl inside the vehicle was not injured.
Because a child under 16 was in the car, the case triggered New York's Child Passenger Protection Act, better known as Leandra's Law, which automatically elevates a first-offense DWI to a Class E felony when a young passenger is present. The statute, according to the New York State Unified Court System, carries a potential sentence of up to four years in state prison and fines between $1,000 and $5,000. Martinez-Serrano was charged with aggravated DWI, endangering the welfare of a child, and multiple traffic violations, the outlet's report notes.
A Law Born From Tragedy
Leandra's Law takes its name from 11-year-old Leandra Rosado, who was killed in 2009 when an intoxicated driver crashed on the Henry Hudson Parkway in Manhattan. The Law Offices of Jason Bassett, P.C. note that the New York State Legislature enacted the measure that November, and it has since become the legal backbone for prosecuting DWI cases involving young passengers statewide.
Beyond the criminal case, an arrest under Leandra's Law sets other mechanisms in motion. Per the Unified Court System, law enforcement agencies are required to automatically report any parent, guardian, or legal custodian arrested for driving impaired with a child passenger to the Statewide Central Register of Child Abuse and Maltreatment. Anyone ultimately convicted of misdemeanor or felony DWI in New York must also install and maintain an ignition interlock device in any vehicle they operate for at least six to 12 months, a requirement detailed by DWI Law New York.
Martinez-Serrano was scheduled to be arraigned Sunday in First District Court in Hempstead, according to the same Daily Voice report. It remains unclear from available reporting whether he has entered a plea or what his bail status is.
Part of a Statewide Holiday Crackdown
The arrest landed squarely inside New York's 2026 “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” campaign, a nationwide Labor Day weekend enforcement push that ran through the holiday on Monday. As Mid Hudson News reported, the campaign brought heightened patrols and sobriety checkpoints across the state, funded in part by the Governor's Traffic Safety Committee. Nassau County police deployed dedicated DWI enforcement patrols funded by New York State STOP-DWI grants across county roadways throughout the holiday weekend.
The numbers behind these crackdowns are substantial. During last year's Labor Day enforcement period, running from August 13 to September 1, 2025, New York State Police issued 9,912 traffic tickets and arrested 225 drivers statewide for DWI, Mid Hudson News reported. Locally, the Nassau County District Attorney's Office runs an interactive “Choices and Consequences” initiative in area high schools, using real crash evidence and defendant testimonies to warn teens about the legal and physical dangers of impaired driving.
Martinez-Serrano's arrest is one of several similar cases Hoodline has tracked across the region this year. In August, Hoodline reported on a Tarrytown woman charged after a trooper found a baby in her backseat, and a Poughkeepsie man was busted with two children, ages 10 and 13, in his car following failed sobriety tests. Those cases, like this one, underscore how frequently Leandra's Law surfaces in Nassau County and across New York whenever holiday DWI patrols intensify.
