Maddie Herron
•6/24/2026
GOLDEN GATE, Fla. (WINK)—A family woke up to thousands of dollars in damage after a man allegedly drove under the influence and crashed into their driveway in the Golden Gate neighborhood in Collier County.
"My wife woke me up and said they just hit our cars again," said Ray Sullivan, the homeowner.
Sullivan's family walked out of their home around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday to find all five of their family's cars dented, smashed and shattered.
The Collier County Sheriff's Office arrested the driver, 19-year-old Marlon Sotolongo, for DUI charges including property damage and refusal to submit to DUI testing.
In the meantime, Sullivan is left to pick up the pieces of his damaged cars.
"We've been through this before five times, to be exact, since 1999 when I bought this house," Sullivan said. "It's just another nightmare."
Sullivan said because he lives off a curved road, a crash like this has happened more than once in his neighborhood.
Collier County's Traffic Operations & Planning Division reviewed the crash history for the area and found only one related crash in more than 10 years of available data. That crash occurred on Feb. 6, 2025, when a driver lost control around the curve and was suspected of alcohol use.
"We would really like to see this remedied with speed bumps, flashing lights, more warnings down the road, something to help protect us, because the truth is that if these cars were not here, that car would have been in my house," Sullivan said.
While one side of the curve does have speed bumps, the other does not. Neighbor Kerry Krueger says that driving from that direction is how another driver struck her cars last year.
"It was the same situation," Krueger said. "If my cars hadn't been there, they would have been in the front, front of my house… We didn't get hurt last time physically, thank God, but that the anxiety, the time off of work to deal with this, having to get rental vehicles, it brings a level of anxiety that's very difficult to deal with."
It's frustrating to deal with thousands of dollars in damages, but Sullivan says he's worried about his family and neighbor's safety down the road.
"We're basically begging, do something about this, because someone will get killed eventually," Sullivan said.
The county said this is the first time Traffic Operations has been contacted regarding this matter. The speed limit is 25 mph on the street, and the location has curve ahead signage with advisory speed plaques, double yellow pavement markings and chevron signage on the actual curve.
No additional signage or engineering control is deemed necessary to conform with the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, according to the county. The county said the homeowner may find it beneficial to engage with neighbors to explore the county's Neighborhood Traffic Management Program for traffic calming, though recent Florida legislation has limited the use of speed tables.
