Marco Antonio Zuniga, of Long Beach, killed in Garden City crash, police say

Garden City police arrested a man after he allegedly fled the scene of a crash that left one person dead early Sunday.

The single-car crash into a tree in Garden City around 4:47 a.m. caused “severe body trauma” to rear passenger Marco Antonio Zuniga, Nassau County police said. The 27-year-old from Long Beach was transported to a hospital where a physician later pronounced him dead.

The crashed 2007 Nissan had been westbound on Stewart Avenue at Nassau Boulevard. The driver fled on foot, according to a Nassau police news release.

Garden City police a short time later arrested the driver, Christhian Velasquez-Galeano, 28, of Long Beach, police said.

During his arraignment at First District Court in Hempstead on Monday, Velasquez-Galeano pleaded not guilty to first-degree vehicular manslaughter, driving while intoxicated with two previous convictions in the past 10 years, leaving the scene of an accident, four counts of aggravated unlicensed operation of a vehicle, driving without an ignition interlock device and false personation, according to court documents. Judge Madeleine Petrara-Perrin ordered him remanded without bail.

The Legal Aid Society of Nassau County represented Velasquez-Galeano at his arraignment, according to Nicole Turso, a spokeswoman for the Nassau District Attorney's Office.

In 2023, 222 people died in Long Island car crashes. Suffolk has led the state in the total number of traffic fatalities for at least a decade, while Nassau has ranked second deadliest in six of the past 10 years, a recent Newsday analysis found.

By Brianne Ledda

brianne.ledda@newsday.com@brianne_ledda

Brianne Ledda covers personal finance and affordability for Newsday. She previously covered Southold and Greenport for The Suffolk Times and is a graduate of Stony Brook University.