A New Jersey man pleaded guilty in connection to a car accident that killed a woman and a girl in Lakewood Township, New Jersey, last July.

Raul Luna-Perez, 43, pleaded guilty to multiple counts of assault by auto and aggravated manslaughter, on Monday, June 15, 2026, prosecutors said.

He is scheduled for sentencing on Aug. 28, 2026.

According to Ocean County officials, on July 26, 2025, officers from Lakewood Township responded to a car crash with multiple injuries at the intersection of Cross Street and Hearthstone Drive.

In the investigation conducted by the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office, Lakewood Township Police, and Ocean County Sherrif’s department, it was revealed that a Dodge Durango operated by Luna-Perez, also holding a passenger, crossed into an oncoming lane of traffic and collided head-on with a Nissan Sentra.

Maria Pleitez, 42, and two 11-year-old girls were inside the Nissan Sentra at the time.

Pleitez was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. One of the 11-year-old girls was transported to Monmouth Medical Center South Campus where she died from her injuries. The second 11-year-old girl was transported to Jersey Shore University Medical Center (JSUMC) where she was treated for her injuries and eventually released.

The passenger in Luna-Perez’s Dodge Durango received minor injuries as a result of the crash, and was treated at JSUMC.

According to police, first responders at the scene detected that Luna-Perez was showing signs of impairment. He was transported to JSUMC, where his blood was drawn. The results of the blood test included a Blood Alcohol Content of 0.19 and traces of cocaine.

In New Jersey, operators of cars are presumed to be over the legal limit for alcohol consumption when their Blood Alcohol Content is 0.08 or greater. As a result of the blood test of Luna-Perez, his charges were upgraded to two counts of aggravated manslaughter and strict liability vehicular manslaughter on Aug. 7, 2025, investigators reveal.

That same day, Luna-Perez was taken into custody at an ICE detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, though he was transported to Ocean County Jail by detectives and has been detained there since.

Subsequently in the investigation, it was revealed that Luna-Perez was accelerating at approximately 60 miles-per-hour at the time of the crash and crossed the yellow line.

According to the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office, the State of New Jersey will be seeking two 10-year terms for each aggravated manslaughter charge of Luna-Perez, and an 18-month sentence for his assault by auto offense. The aggravated manslaughter sentences will run consecutively, while the assault by auto sentence will run concurrently.

WEST ORANGE, New Jersey (WABC) — West Orange, New Jersey bid farewell to a piece of history Tuesday night.

The Pullman rail car, dating back nearly 120 years, has seen better days. For the past four decades it’s been part of a restaurant in West Orange, but now that restaurant is closed, and the rail car is moving along to a new life.

It was my playground as a young kid growing up,” said Tony Markouris, the son of the owner. “It was a beautiful, historic landmark that was also sculpted in West Orange and brought a lot of people to the area as a historic landmark.”

What began as a luxurious, private, rail car for a copper baron in 1909, later was hitched to the Essex House restaurant in West Orange as a dining experience for the common man.

“It’s worth mentioning that Robert Lincoln, the son of Abraham Lincoln, was the president of the Pullman Company when this train car was manufactured, and he certainly would have overseen the construction of this,” said West Orange historian Joseph Fagan.

After 40 years, the restaurant closed and the Pullman car fell victim to time.

So, the owners decided to donate the rail car to a trust. Plans are to restore it to its former Gilded Age glory, and put it back on track to run as a two-hour, dining, train ride in Boyertown, Pennsylvania.

“A lot of times cars go to railroad museums and put on display, but for this car to get life to operate again is just really exceptional,” said David Duncan, an historic railcar consultant.

Eyewitness News is told the restoration project will take at least two years. Meanwhile, plans are to turn this former restaurant and parking lot into an apartment complex.

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With fresh supplies, we set off again, marching in our canoe hat past warehouses, over overpasses, on tiny sidewalks. Cars gave us narrow berth. One guy remarked, “That’s a big boat!” A few truckers blew their horns. The wind picked up. When it caught the canoe broadside, the stern tended to swing out over the roadway. This wasn’t ideal. It was tough on the shoulders. Also, it risked collision with the semis rumbling by. I was glad we enlisted Brent, who is six feet two, and strong.

A sign announced that we’d crossed into Secaucus. Underneath, it said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” I felt that we were. As we walked past industrial parks and waste-management lots, a man called out, “I’ve got a canoe just like this!” His name was Gregory. He was a welder. He takes his craft on the Hackensack once a week, to go crabbing. “I cook them up, make some gravy,” he said. “Some nice fucking Italian shit.” (On account of the river’s elevated levels of cadmium, a carcinogenic heavy metal, and high levels of polychlorinated biphenyls from industrial waste, the N.J. Department of Environmental Protection strongly recommends against this.) But Gregory had recently grown tired of life on the sea. “I’m trying to sell it,” he said, of the canoe. “You want it?” As we chatted, I’d been holding our canoe above my head, bracing it against the wind. I told him that we were good on canoes for the moment.

We portaged on, over the New Jersey Turnpike, through downtown Secaucus, over a narrow pedestrian bridge above Route 3. We made it to the motel in less than two hours. The Hackensack appeared behind the parking lot, surprisingly broad and sparkly. Phragmites reeds lined the water, and the American Dream mall loomed over the far bank. It didn’t smell too bad. Except for the cars roaring overhead on a nearby bridge, a continuation of Route 3, it was pretty peaceful.

As the captain, I took the front. Brent steered in the back. Diego navigated, and provided ballast, in the middle. We were heading north, but Brent had us haul due west, so the vegetation on the far bank would provide a windbreak. We had the river to ourselves. One concern of mine was corpses. Bob Sullivan has found that bodies have been dumped in the Meadowlands since at least the Revolutionary War. People think Jimmy Hoffa is there. But we didn’t see any. Brent took us on a scenic detour of an inlet. We saw a beautiful white egret. There were ospreys, hawks, and a lot of tree swallows. The view was uncommonly broad, and the city skyline poked out of the eastern sky. I’d never experienced a more pleasant commute, though it wasn’t perfect. When we lifted our paddles from the water, the wind sent it spraying back at us. It was surprisingly warm. Some of it splashed in my mouth.

The trip took fifteen minutes, plus the detour. When we landed, Brent pulled out a camping stove and made coffee. The crew stayed with the canoe, and I finished the trek solo, navigating down a sparsely travelled access road. I knew these parts. I’m from New Jersey, and I grew up with season tickets to the Jets. Back then, similarly frustrated with the difficulties of the commute, my dad would park off the shoulder of the Route 3 off-ramp, in the mud next to a thicket of phragmites. The parking ticket was cheaper than a parking pass, and there were enough gaps in the cars whizzing by that we could scamper across. The authorities are stricter now. I strolled up Outwater Lane and turned north. I crossed the Turnpike for the second time. (Around the Meadowlands, the Turnpike turns confusingly fractal.) I turned onto something called Road D. It wasn’t so bad. Near the stadium, a worker on a cart zipped by, transporting what looked like propane tanks. His name was Mariano. He gave me a ride to the credentialling tent. From start to finish, the journey took less than three hours.