YORKTOWN, N.Y. (AP/1010 WINS) -- Another very drunk driver was going the wrong direction on the same suburban highway where eight people were killed in a wrong-way crash in July, state police said Thursday.
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This time, there was no crash and no casualties, the police said.
The driver, Gregorio Pena, 44, of the Bronx, was arrested late Wednesday night after state police received a report of a wrong-way car on the Taconic Parkway just north of New York City. They found Pena driving a livery cab north in the parkway's southbound lanes in Yorktown and pulled him over. He had no passengers.
Pena's blood-alcohol content was 0.20 percent, 2 1/2 times the legal limit, the police said. Pena was charged with aggravated driving while intoxicated and was to be arraigned Thursday night; court officials said they did not have an attorney's name on record.
Diane Schuler of West Babylon, the 36-year-old driver who killed herself and seven others in the July crash, was found to have a blood-alcohol content of 0.19 percent. She was driving her minivan south in the northbound lanes of the parkway, about 10 miles south of where Pena was arrested.
Schuler's daughter, three young nieces and three men in an oncoming SUV were killed in that crash. Her 5-year-old son survived. Schuler's husband has refused to accept the autopsy findings that his wife was drunk and high on marijuana, and a second, private autopsy is planned.
Photo of Pena/Handout
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