STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 A Pleasant Plains man was drunk behind the wheel of a car after a hit-and-run crash on the West Shore Expressway, authorities allege.<\/p>\n
John Bernardo, 42, of Pleasant Plains Avenue, had a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal limit when he was tested following the crash on Dec. 5 at about 3:35 p.m., according to the criminal complaint.<\/p>\n
Bernardo was driving a black 2020 Jeep Grand Cherokee that collided with a 2017 Chevrolet SUV on the New Jersey-bound expressway near the exit for Arthur Kill Road, police said.<\/p>\n
The defendant drove away without exchanging identification or insurance information, the complaint alleges.<\/p>\n
The 55-year-old driver of the Chevy did not report any injuries at the scene, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.<\/p>\n
Bernardo was placed under arrest at about 5 p.m. on Arthur Kill Road near Rossville Avenue, according to police.<\/p>\n
Officers allege that Bernardo showed signs of intoxication that included watery eyes, slurred speech and an odor of alcohol on his breath.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess I should be honest,\u201d the criminal complaint alleges Bernardo told police. \u201cI had more than two beers. I had four shots of vodka. There\u2019s two in the backpack you guys took.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bernardo registered a blood-alcohol content of 0.225, the complaint alleges. The legal limit is 0.08. <\/p>\n
The car that he allegedly hit was damaged on the front driver\u2019s side.<\/p>\n
The defendant faces several charges, including aggravated driving while intoxicated; driving while ability impaired by the consumption of alcohol; and leaving the scene of an accident with property damage.<\/p>\n
Bernardo pleaded not guilty to all charges, was released on his own recognizance and is due back in Criminal Court in St. George on Feb. 2, according to public records. <\/p>\n
An attorney for the defendant did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 A Pleasant Plains man was drunk behind the wheel of a car after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-68078","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68078","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=68078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}