A 27-year-old Hempstead man pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges stemming from a wrong-way crash in Garden City that left another driver with a lacerated liver and multiple broken bones. Cheninson Lafontaine had just finished a shift as an Uber Eats delivery driver on March 7 when he allegedly drove his 2020 Mercedes-Benz sedan the wrong way down Cathedral Avenue and slammed head-on into a woman's Infiniti sedan, according to prosecutors.
Lafontaine was arraigned before Judge Teresa K. Corrigan on charges of second-degree assault, second-degree vehicular assault, driving while intoxicated per se, driving while intoxicated, and driving while ability impaired, according to Patch. He pleaded not guilty, and his bail was set at $500,000 cash, a $1.2 million bond, or a $2.5 million partially secured bond. As DailyVoice also reported, Lafontaine is due back in court on Oct. 21 and faces up to seven years in prison if convicted.
Prosecutors allege Lafontaine was driving 89 mph in a 30-mph zone moments before the crash, at around noon on March 7. His blood alcohol content was measured at 0.10 percent about 30 minutes after the collision, and prosecutors said he also had fentanyl and marijuana in his system. The crash was fierce enough that Lafontaine's Mercedes caught fire, and witnesses had to pull him from the burning car.
Victim Faced Surgery for Multiple Injuries
The woman driving the Infiniti suffered a lacerated liver along with fractures to her rib, kneecap and ankle, injuries that required surgery, per the same account from Patch. Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly addressed the severity of the collision directly, saying, “It is a miracle no one was killed in this crash.”
A Pattern of Impaired, Wrong-Way Driving on Long Island
Lafontaine's case lands amid what regional data shows is a persistent problem with drug-involved driving across Long Island. Twenty-four percent of fatal crashes on Long Island in 2023 involved a drug-involved driver, seven percentage points higher than in 2014, according to Newsday. That share had climbed as high as 30 percent in 2020 before settling back down, and the outlet also reported that the proportion of drivers refusing chemical testing after being pulled over doubled over five years, reaching around a fifth of stops in 2022.```
Other wrong-way crashes have played out across the region in recent months. A Valley Stream woman, Kelyse Land, was sentenced to two to six years in prison last month after pleading guilty to aggravated vehicular assault and driving under the combined influence of alcohol and drugs, stemming from a July 2025 crash in which she crossed double yellow lines on Hempstead Avenue and struck a BMW stopped at a red light, according to the Long Island Press.
A far deadlier wrong-way crash on the Southern State Parkway killed two people and injured several others, with prosecutors saying driver Diana Kutateladze was traveling 81 mph with a blood alcohol content of .15, according to ABC7 New York. In response, New York State Police launched Operation Southern Shield, a targeted traffic enforcement initiative that the outlet reported was set to run through June 12.
Cathedral Avenue's Long History of Crashes
Cathedral Avenue itself has drawn scrutiny well before this latest crash. A 2021 traffic study found 163 accidents on the roadway between 2017 and 2019, with 56 percent requiring hospitalization of vehicle occupants, according to Garden City News. A representative from the Central Property Owners Association told the outlet that 85 percent of drivers were traveling at least 45 mph, calling speeding a systemic problem on the street. Village officials had floated a road diet that would reduce Cathedral Avenue to one travel lane in each direction between St. Paul's Place and 6th Street, with a two-way left-turn lane added in between.
Nassau County has pursued lengthy prison terms in other impaired wrong-way driving cases. Amandeep Singh was sentenced to 8⅓ to 25 years in prison for a 2023 wrong-way crash in Jericho that killed two 14-year-olds and injured two other teenagers, according to the Nassau County District Attorney. Prosecutors said Singh had been driving 95 mph before the crash and was found to be intoxicated and high on cocaine at the time.
For now, Lafontaine's case remains in its early stages, with his next court appearance scheduled for Wednesday.
