Man pleads guilty to DUI crash that left two friends drowned in Naperville

A west suburban man pleaded guilty Wednesday to being intoxicated when he drove his vehicle into Naperville’s Quarry Lake in 2014, drowning two friends, according to prosecutors.

Michael Szot, 22, entered a blind plea of guilty to one count of aggravated DUI causing death plea this morning in front of Judge Brian Telander, according to a statement from the DuPage County state’s attorney’s office.

“This morning Michael Szot took responsibility for the tragic deaths of his two friends, Sajaad Syed and Mihirtej Boddupalli,” DuPage County state’s attorney Robert Berlin said in a statement. “His admission, however, can never erase what happened that evening and how his extremely bad decision to get behind the wheel of a car after he had been drinking and smoking marijuana took two young, promising lives.”

About 1:45 a.m. on July 19, Szot and his friends were driving westbound on Aurora Avenue, prosecutors said. As he approached the intersection of Eagle Street, his vehicle left the roadway and went down an embankment into Quarry Lake.

Police arrived and took Szot into custody. The bodies of Syed and Boddupalli were still in the vehicle at the bottom of the lake at the time, prosecutors said.

Szot’s alcohol content was above the legal limit of .08. He also admitted to smoking marijuana earlier that day and was in possession of a marijuana pipe, according to prosecutors.

Szot, of the 2600 block of Chatham in Geneva, is next scheduled to appear in court Oct. 2 for return of a pre-sentencing report. He faces 6-28 years in prison.