Middlesex County officials announced today that a motorist had been sentenced for causing the death of a motorcyclist in a crash that occurred on Route 1 North in Edison on the night of June 27, 2020.
Officials said on June 27, 2020, at approximately 2:19 a.m., Edison Police officers responded to a motor vehicle crash involving a sedan and a motorcycle.
An investigation by Detective Jonathan Berman of the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office and Captain Dominick Masi of the Edison Police Department determined that Roland Q. Lyles, 31, who was driving a white Nissan Sentra, was traveling northbound on Route 1 near Grandview Avenue at a high rate of speed when he struck the victim’s motorcycle.
After the crash, the motorcycle driver, Mr. Richard Diaz, 51, of Brooklyn, N.Y., was taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick.
He died on June 30, 2020, from his injuries.
Lyles was subsequently charged with and pleaded guilty to second-degree Vehicular Homicide and Driving While Intoxicated.
On April 22, following sentencing arguments by Assistant Prosecutor Keith Abrams, Lyles was sentenced by the Honorable Judge Thomas Buck to ten years in state prison on one count of second-degree vehicular homicide subject to the No Early Release Act with three years of parole.
Upon his release, Lyles will be subject to a twenty-five-year loss of license.