A 47-year-old New York man is now charged alongside the driver after detectives searched the Acura and U-Haul linked to the deadly Route 17 crash
PARAMUS, NJ – A fatal crash outside the Garden State Plaza has turned into a drug case. Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella announced that a second man, 47-year-old Michael C. Marciano of Fairport, NY, surrendered Friday, October 23, 2026, and was charged in the continuing investigation. Prosecutors also filed new drug charges against 31-year-old Estuardo G. Rodriguez, the driver accused in the October 19 hit-and-run that killed a woman on Route 17 South.
According to the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, detectives learned during the follow-up investigation that Rodriguez allegedly had one pill each of suspected Ecstasy and Percocet on him at the time of the crash.
Investigators then executed a court-authorized search of the 2024 Acura Rodriguez was driving and the U-Haul trailer it was towing. Inside, they say, were several hundred THC cartridges.
The search also revealed that the Acura was not Rodriguez’s. It belongs to Marciano, who also rented the trailer. Prosecutors say Marciano was at the scene of the crash in a separate vehicle, traveling in tandem with Rodriguez.
Rodriguez was served with new charges while still held at the Bergen County Jail on the original counts. They include:
- Two counts of second-degree possession with intent to distribute a controlled dangerous substance
- Second-degree conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute
- Two counts of third-degree possession of a controlled dangerous substance
Marciano faces the same three second-degree counts: two counts of possession with intent to distribute and one count of conspiracy. He was remanded to the Bergen County Jail pending his first appearance in Bergen County Superior Court in Hackensack.
Paramus police were called to Route 17 South near the Westfield Garden State Plaza around 5:09 p.m. on Monday, October 19. Authorities say Rodriguez’s Acura and a 2015 Buick collided. Krisiann Reyes Rivera, a passenger in the Buick, was taken by ambulance to Hackensack University Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.
Rodriguez was initially charged with second-degree death by auto, second-degree knowingly leaving the scene of a fatal accident, third-degree endangering an injured victim, and third-degree driving while suspended in a collision resulting in death, along with related motor vehicle offenses. As Shore News Network previously reported, witnesses followed the fleeing SUV and blocked it in until police arrived.
A Bergen County judge rejected prosecutors’ request to keep Rodriguez jailed while the case moves forward, and ordered him to home detention. Marciano’s court status had not been publicly updated at the time of this report.
Paramus police and Bergen County detectives investigate the Route 17 South area near Westfield Garden State Plaza where a deadly hit-and-run occurred on October 19.