![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774975688_470_image.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nA Queens man was indicted on elevated charges of manslaughter after Nassau prosecutors said he fell asleep on prescription drugs and illegal pills and jumped a curb, killing a Nassau police crossing guard in February in Merrick.<\/p>\n
Joshua Alvarado, 30, was indicted on \u00a0Friday on six charges including manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter and three counts of driving while ability impaired by drugs.<\/p>\n
He pleaded not guilty on Tuesday and was ordered remanded to in jail without bail.<\/p>\n
His attorney declined to comment.<\/p>\n
Alvarado is charged in the Feb. 26 crash when his Toyota pickup jumped a curb at 8 a.m. on Sunrise Highway at Merrick Avenue, striking crossing guard John Miro, 70, of Massapequa, who was shoveling snow and helping young children cross the street.<\/p>\n
Alvarado was initially charged with assault and drugged driving following the crash before Miro died.<\/p>\n
Miro broke his hip, fractured his skull and suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung. He died from his injuries about a week later in the intensive care unit at Nassau University Medical Center.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said a blood test showed Alvarado had several central nervous system depressants in his system, including Xanax, clonazepam, known as Klonopin, and the illegal drug known as “street Xanax.”<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said on Tuesday that Alvarado was not under a prescription for Xanax or other drugs and a month earlier had been prescribed a drug withdrawal\u00a0medication, Suboxone. He also was given the drug while experiencing withdrawal symptoms in the Nassau County jail.<\/p>\n
“What our investigation has revealed was that this defendant allegedly drove with a dangerous cocktail of powerful sedatives and antidepressants in his system,” Nassau District Attorney Anne Donnelly said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Donnelly said Alvarado was driving his work truck to a call as an exterminator and he fell asleep at a red light. Witnesses said he was jolted awake when a car honked behind him, causing him to jump the curb, striking Miro was standing on the sidewalk.<\/p>\n
His attorney previously said Alvarado was being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder after he was the victim of an assault and took the medication the night before. He said Alvarado hit a patch of ice on Sunrise Highway and lost control.<\/p>\n
Donnelly said Alvarado chose to take drugs before driving to work and “this crash was not an accident, it was inevitable.”<\/p>\n
“When you take drugs and get behind the wheel of a car, you are not just a driver anymore. You are a moving threat to every pedestrian, bicyclist and driver around you, these actions have deadly consequences that are entirely preventable,” Donnelly said.<\/p>\n
If convicted, Alvarado faces up to 15 years in prison.<\/p>\n
Newsday’s Janon Fisher contributed to this story.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n\tJohn Asbury is a breaking news and general assignment reporter. He has been with Newsday since 2014 and previously worked at The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, California.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Queens man was indicted on elevated charges of manslaughter after Nassau prosecutors said he fell asleep on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[303,9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-181018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-crime","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}