Motorist Faces Multiple Counts Of DUI Manslaughter

MIAMI, FL — A motorist was charged with four counts of DUI manslaughter and related offenses Friday after allegedly plowing into a group of Good Samaritans who had stopped to help an injured motorcyclist along Interstate 95, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. The crash occurred shortly after 1 a.m. Friday morning at NW 62 Street.

Forty-two-year-old Lionel Orrego was also charged with two counts of DUI with serious bodily injury, three counts of DUI with property damage and one count of resisting arrest with violence, said Lt. Alex Camacho of the Florida Highway Patrol in Miami.

Subscribe to Miami Patch's free email news alerts and newsletters

Camacho said that the crowd of Good Samaritans were struck by Orrego's white GMC Savana when they stopped along the rain-soaked northbound lanes to assist a motorcylist who had been involved in an earlier crash.

Four people were killed and at least two others were seriously injured in the incident. Orrego may have also been injured but the extent of his injuries were unknown.

Killed were 21-year-old Alina Ghani, 38-year-old Randy Benjamin, 25-year-old Jhon Brady Garzon and 27-year-old Meryl Diaz.

"A white van traveling northbound on I-95 collided into the vehicles and onto all those pedestrians trying to assist the motorcycle victim," a Florida Highway Patrol spokesman told Local 10 News.

After striking the Good Samaritans and a number of vehicles Orrego's van crashed into a wall and traveled across all of the northbound lanes of I-95 before coming to rest on the delineators that divide the travel lanes from the express lanes.

Photo of Lionel Orrego courtesy Miami-Dade Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation