Mom charged with driving impaired with baby in the car, police say

Suffolk County police arrested a Huntington Station woman who they say crashed into a median on the Long Island Expressway while she was driving impaired with her 4-month-old daughter in the vehicle.

The woman was identified as Rachel Meyer, 28. Police said she was driving a 2009 Subaru Forrester westbound Sunday around 3 p.m. when "she lost control of the vehicle and crashed it into the median near exit 53," a department news release said.

She was found unconscious in the front seat while the child was found in a child restraint in the back, police said.

Meyer was charged with driving while intoxicated, child endangerment and violating Leandra's Law, a crime related to driving while intoxicated with a minor 15 or younger in the car.

The release did not indicate the drugs that she was allegedly impaired by nor the basis for the allegations.

The child was given to a family member, police said.

Her attorney, Robert Macedonio, of Islip Terrace, said that a not-guilty plea was entered on her behalf.

He said court papers allege that his client told the police that she snorted heroin. But he said she denies saying that.

"She told me she didn't tell the cops that," he said.

She was freed on supervised release, and the district attorney's office got a warrant for blood and a sample was taken, but results are pending, he said.

Leandra's Law went into effect in 2009. It is named after 11-year-old Leandra Rosado of Manhattan, who died in a crash on the West Side Highway in which her friend's mother was charged with drunken driving.