A Woodmere man has pleaded guilty to killing his own cousin in a drunken, high-speed crash on Peninsula Boulevard, more than two years after the Nissan Altima he was driving slammed into a tree and came to rest in the woods off the road's shoulder. Brian Antonio Lopez Cruz admitted to aggravated vehicular homicide, second-degree manslaughter, second-degree assault and driving while intoxicated, according to Nassau County officials.
Lopez Cruz, identified by the Nassau County district attorney's office as 23 and from Woodmere, is expected to receive five to 15 years in prison, as reported by DailyVoice.com. He is scheduled to return to court on Dec. 2, 2026, per the district attorney's office. The earlier indictment announcement from the Nassau County District Attorney had listed Lopez Cruz's age as 22 at the time of his arraignment, a discrepancy with the 23-year-old age cited in the more recent plea coverage.
A Night at a Hempstead Bar Ends in Tragedy
The crash happened early on Sept. 17, 2023, after Lopez Cruz spent several hours drinking at a bar in Hempstead, investigators determined, according to the same DailyVoice.com account. He was speeding southbound on Peninsula Boulevard when he lost control of the car, veered off the road and hit a tree, the outlet's reporting states. The Nassau County District Attorney's own account placed the crash at approximately 4:23 a.m., while the DailyVoice.com report cited a time of around 4:20 a.m.
Killed in the crash was Merlin Lopez, Lopez Cruz's 28-year-old cousin, who prosecutors said was killed instantly. A second passenger, a 32-year-old woman, survived but suffered a fractured pelvis, broken ribs and a perforated colon that required extensive surgery and partial removal, authorities said. Lopez Cruz himself suffered head trauma and significant internal bleeding and underwent surgery after the crash, officials said, and a hospital blood test showed his blood alcohol content at 0.13 percent, according to investigators.
Nearly Two Years Before an Arrest
Online court records indicate Lopez Cruz was arrested in August 2025 after an investigation that stretched on for nearly two years, and he has been held without bail since then, the records show. The Nassau County District Attorney's office said the defendant was formally arrested on Aug. 4, 2025, by Nassau County Police Department detectives, and he was indicted that same day in Nassau County Court on aggravated vehicular homicide and related charges stemming from the fatal Rockville Centre-area crash.
At his arraignment, the district attorney's office said Lopez Cruz pleaded not guilty and was remanded, while the DailyVoice.com account of that earlier stage described him as having been ordered held without bail. The indictment announcement from prosecutors noted that, if convicted at trial, Lopez Cruz had faced up to 8⅓ to 25 years in prison — a different range than the five-to-15-year term now expected under the guilty plea.
Part of a Pattern Nassau Prosecutors Keep Confronting
Lopez Cruz's case joins a string of similar prosecutions Nassau County has pursued in recent years. The district attorney's office separately announced that a Glen Cove woman pleaded guilty to charges including aggravated vehicular homicide and drugged driving after a fiery crash in North Hills, and that a Laurelton man pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicular homicide for a high-speed crash on the Southern State Parkway, according to Nassau County District Attorney alerts. Newsday has also reported on the drunken driver who pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicular homicide after fatally striking Nassau Police Officer Patricia Espinosa as she drove to work.
Merlin Lopez's death was one of Nassau County's motor-vehicle fatalities. The Nassau County Department of Health's Office of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Planning maintains a dashboard meant to identify trends in motor vehicle fatalities, emergency-department visits and hospitalizations across the county. For now, the next concrete step in the case is Lopez Cruz's Dec. 2 court date, when he is expected to be sentenced.
