A man has been arrested months after an alleged drunken wrong-way crash on the Palmetto Expressway in Miami-Dade left his passenger dead and another driver seriously injured, authorities said.
Ricardo Oreste Rivas-Figueredo, 41, was arrested Thursday on charges including DUI manslaughter, vehicular homicide in a reckless manner, DUI causing serious bodily injury, reckless driving causing serious bodily injury, and reckless driving with damage to property or person, an arrest report said.
Miami-Dade Corrections
Miami-Dade Corrections
Ricardo Oreste Rivas-Figueredo
The crash happened around 1 a.m. on July 14 in the southbound lanes of the Palmetto Expressway near Okeechobee Road.
According to the report, Rivas-Figueredo was driving a white Mercedes SUV northbound in the southbound lanes when he collided head-on with a white Dodge SUV.
The Mercedes began to roll and came to a final rest on its roof, and the front passenger in the Mercedes, a man named Marco Tulio Mejia Peralta, was ejected and pronounced dead at the scene, the report said.
The Dodge hit the concrete wall on the shoulder and also rolled over, leaving the driver, Alejandro Nieves Jr., hospitalized with serious injuries, including facial fractures, four broken ribs, and internal bleeding.
Nieves had to have portions of his large and small intestines removed, his right arm was broken and required screws and plates, and he has “persistent pain and limited mobility months after the collision,” the report said.
Rivas-Figueredo was also hospitalized, and blood samples taken from him revealed a .242 blood alcohol level, over three times Florida’s legal level of .08, the report said.
Rivas-Figueredo was arrested at his northwest Miami-Dade home and booked into jail.