Old Bridge Man Sentenced For DWI Crash That Killed 2 Young Women

OLD BRIDGE, NJ — An Old Bridge man was sentenced Tuesday for causing the death of two women and injuring another driver in a July 2019 drunk driving crash on Englishtown Road, said Middlesex County Prosecutor Yolanda Ciccone.

Tristan R. Rodriguez, 25, was sentenced to seventeen years in state prison on one count of first-degree aggravated manslaughter, one count of second-degree vehicular homicide, and one count of fourth-degree assault by auto.

He must serve 85 percent of his sentence, approximately fourteen-and-a-half years, before he is eligible for parole. When he gets out of jail, at the age of 40, he will also lose his license for 20 years.

The fatal crash happened in the early morning hours of July 6, 2019: Prosecutors say Rodriguez was intoxicated and driving his car at a high speed on Englishtown Road when he crashed into the rear of a pickup truck.

Krystal C. Diaz, 29, of Old Bridge who was a passenger in Rodriguez’s car and a seventeen-year-old female who was a passenger in the truck were both pronounced dead at the scene due to injuries. When she died, Diaz's mother started a GoFundMe to help bury her daughter, and said that her daughter was only two minutes from her home when she died.

"She was 29 years of age (and) was working hard at the Seville Diner in the hopes to earn money to pay off student loans to continue her education," her mother wrote. "She was beautiful, hard-working, intelligent with so much potential." Read: Victims ID'd, Driver Intoxicated In Old Bridge Double Fatal: MCPO

The twenty-year-old male driver of the truck, also from Old Bridge, was taken to the hospital and treated for his injuries.

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