{"id":202653,"date":"2026-03-23T17:00:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T17:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/202653\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T17:00:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T17:00:15","slug":"florida-man-charged-in-wrong-way-crash-that-killed-81-year-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/202653\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida man charged in wrong-way crash that killed 81-year-old"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">FARMINGTON HILLS \u2014 The driver of a Chevy Blazer SUV involved in a wrong-way crash on Interstate 696 earlier this month has been charged with reckless driving causing death.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Richard Leon-Zghen, 26, of Florida, was arraigned March 20 in 47th District Court on the charge, three days after police took him into custody and a week after the crash killed an 81-year-old Detroit man.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Police said the preliminary investigation had suggested the driver at fault was the Detroit man, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/articles\/81-old-driver-dies-head-195613427.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:who was initially reported to be driving a white van eastbound on westbound I-696 near Halsted Road around 4:34 a.m., Friday, March 13;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;who was initially reported to be driving a white van eastbound on westbound I-696 near Halsted Road around 4&quot;}\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">who was initially reported to be driving a white van eastbound on westbound I-696 near Halsted Road around 4:34 a.m., Friday, March 13<\/a> when the crash occurred.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">However, &#8220;digital forensic evidence was identified during the course of the investigation that proved otherwise,&#8221; Farmington Hills Police Chief John Piggott said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Leon-Zghen was taken into custody on March 17 after the Oakland County Prosecutor&#8217;s Office authorized the reckless driving causing death charge, a 15-year felony.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThe defense team has not been provided any evidence\u00a0to support the\u00a0allegations against our client,&#8221; defense attorney Ellen Michaels said in an email. &#8220;We look forward to reviewing the evidence and fully expect the facts to come out through the legal process.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Leon-Zghen remains in the Oakland County Jail on a $250,000 bond. His next court date is set for April 3.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Farmington Hills police continue to investigate the crash.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">They ask anyone with information related to the crash to contact the Farmington Hills Police Command Desk at 248-871-2610.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Contact reporter Susan Bromley at sbromley@hometownlife.com<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">This article originally appeared on Hometownlife.com: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hometownlife.com\/story\/news\/2026\/03\/23\/farmington-hills-fatal-crash-i-696-charge-richard-leon-zghen\/89284445007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Florida man charged in wrong-way crash that killed 81-year-old;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Florida man charged in wrong-way crash that killed 81-year-old&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Florida man charged in wrong-way crash that killed 81-year-old<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FARMINGTON HILLS \u2014 The driver of a Chevy Blazer SUV involved in a wrong-way crash on Interstate 696&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[93332,28,30,29,6334,93331],"class_list":["post-202653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-47th-district-court","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-reckless-driving","tag-richard-leon-zghen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}