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A Glen Cove woman who got behind the wheel high on cocaine and Xanax after an all-night Uber shift and party pleaded guilty Monday to killing a motorcycle rider in a fiery North Hills crash.
Nina Varrino, 52, pleaded guilty before Judge Helene Gugerty to aggravated vehicular homicide, second-degree assault and driving while ability impaired by the combined influence of drugs, Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said.
The now ex-Uber driver is expected to be sent to prison for seven to 21 years when she is sentenced on Nov. 19.
The July 12, 2025, crash killed comedian Lisa Harmon Pelaez, 58, and left her husband, George Pelaez, 64, with a fractured spine, broken ribs, two fractured shoulders and a collapsed lung.
The Queens couple had “set out on a clear summer day for what should have been a peaceful motorcycle ride together,” Donnelly said. “Instead, they were met with terror because Nina Varrino crashed into them while she was high on cocaine and Xanax.”
Warned to stop driving
Prosecutors said Varrino worked an Uber shift the night before the crash, then stayed up partying, drinking and doing drugs.
At about 11:28 a.m., roughly an hour and 20 minutes before the fatal crash, she was driving erratically on the Cross Island Parkway and pulled 2025 Kia Sportage onto the shoulder. Witnesses told her she should not be driving, prosecutors said.
Nonetheless, she kept going, according to Donnelly.
About 12 minutes later, at 11:40 a.m., Varrino rear-ended another vehicle on the Marathon Parkway in Queens. But she still kept driving after, prosecutors said.
‘A fiery wreck’
Right around 12:49 p.m., the Pelaezes were riding east on their 2010 Harley-Davidson along the Long Island Expressway’s South Service Road between New Hyde Park Road and Shelter Rock Road.
The couple was headed to Port Jefferson for the afternoon and a motorcycle museum in Oyster Bay, with Lisa sitting behind her husband.
Varrino, while driving behind them, passed out at the wheel and slammed into the motorcycle, prosecutors said. Both riders were thrown from the bike, and the Kia and the motorcycle burst into flames.
Varrino was able to climb out of the burning SUV and suffered only minor injuries.
Lisa Pelaez suffered blunt-force head trauma and died about two hours later at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset. George Pelaez needed to be intubated for about 10 days in order to keep him alive; he spent a month in the hospital.
Blood tests taken about four hours after the crash showed active levels of cocaine and Xanax in Varrino’s system, prosecutors said.
Weeks before her death, Harmon Palaez and her husband had help place tens of thousands of American flags on the graves of fallend soldiers for Memorial Day.
Arrested in February this year, seven months after the crash, Varrino was initially identified by police as Nicholas Varrino.
At her arraignment, she asked the court to be identified as a female, and has since been referred to as Nina Varrino by authorities.
Top: Nina Varrino (NCPD) at left and George Palaez and Lisa Harmon Palaez on the right (Facebook).
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