Bail revoked for Diana Kutateladze, Oceanside woman charged in alleged DWI crash that killed 2

A Nassau County judge on Tuesday revoked the bail of an Oceanside woman accused of killing a couple in March in a wrong-way, drunken-driving crash after she was indicted in Louisiana for trying to bribe a public official with money and tequila in an attempt to free a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainee.

Diana Kutateladze, 36, still in a wheelchair as a result of injuries from the six-car crash in March, appeared briefly before Supreme Court Justice Howard Sturim for a hearing and was remanded into custody.

Louisiana federal prosecutors charge that on Jan. 11, 2024, Kutateladze offered Patron Silver tequila and a $100 gift card to an unnamed public official to get him to release a person in immigration custody. Then on Jan. 16, 2024, she offered to make an online payment of $1,000 to free the detainee, according to the indictment. She upped the amount to $2,000 on May 28, 2024, prosecutors said, to get the official to release the migrant.

The official reported the interaction to his supervisors, who launched an investigation, according to Louisiana prosecutors.

Kutateladze's indictment was unsealed on July 15, and she had not yet appeared before a federal judge to enter a plea in the case.

Her attorney, Sara Pervez, declined to comment after the state court hearing. Her husband, who was in the courtroom, also declined to comment.

Nassau Assistant District Attorney Michael Bushwack asked the judge to remand Kutateladze for fear that she would flee the country in light of the additional charges.

“She is an absolute, significant flight risk,” he told the court.

Pervez offered to surrender Kutateladze's passport and the passports of her mother and children, as well as home detention, but the judge was unpersuaded.

Kutateladze, who also goes by the name Diana Tambieva, faces a 23-count indictment in Nassau County for killing Donald Maxwell, 82, and his wife, Liscent Maxwell, 88, the leaders of the Pentecostal City Mission Church in Far Rockaway on March 15.

County prosecutors charge she was driving her 2020 Cadillac Escalade more than 81 mph with a blood alcohol content of 0.15%, nearly double the legal limit when she sideswiped another car, spun out of control and jumped the metal divider into oncoming traffic.

Her car slammed head-on into a 2016 Toyota Highlander carrying the Maxwells.

Liscent Maxwell, sitting in the back, was decapitated, and her husband, in the passenger seat, “was completely crushed,” Nassau District Attorney Anne Donnelly said after the crash in March.

Althea Reid, the choir director of the Brooklyn branch of the church, told Newsday the loss of the couple was “a blow to the church.”

She described them as “very dedicated, hardworking people who cared, people who loved the brethren.”

The driver, a church member who was driving the couple home, suffered crushed ribs, a compound fracture in the hand and a heart injury, prosecutors said.

Kutateladze’s husband was also injured and had to be cut out of the Cadillac.

The crash shut down the Southern State Parkway and several other drivers were injured in chain-reaction crashes.

She told police she had a single drink of whiskey and Coke at home earlier in the evening.

Kutateladze pleaded not guilty after she was indicted in April on two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide, vehicular manslaughter, vehicular assault, drunken driving and other charges.

She faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted of the crash charges.

Her next court date is Monday.