Actor Pablo Lyle is charged with manslaughter in death of motorist
Prosecutors charged Mexican actor Pablo Lyle with manslaughter after he fatally punched a motorist during a road-rage confrontation in Miami.
The charge was announced Wednesday morning as Lyle, 32, appeared at an arraignment in MiamiDade Circuit Court. He pleaded not guilty.
Lyle was initially charged with felony battery for the punch that landed on 63year-old Juan Ricardo Hernandez on March 31. Hernandez suffered a traumatic brain injury and died four days later at Jackson Memorial Hospital.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office declined a second-degree murder charge but concluded that Lyle acted recklessly when he charged at Hernandez and punched him.
Lyle was the star of “Mi Adorable Maldición,” or “My Adorable Curse,” and now acts in movies. His legal case has drawn widespread coverage in Spanishlanguage media, particularly in Mexico, where he is an up-and-coming actor. He had been ordered to remain in Miami on house arrest after posting a $50,000 bond pending Wednesday’s arraignment.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Alan Fine did not order him to post a greater bond for the charge of manslaughter, which carries a maximum punishment of 15 years in prison.
Lyle’s defense lawyers have insisted that the actor was defending himself, his wife, and their two children from what he believed was a violent attacker who got out of his car and banged on the window of the Lyle family’s car.
“Pablo wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t be here, if the aggressor never got out of his car. He had no right to do that. Nobody knew what was on his mind,” his defense attorney, Philip Reizenstein, told reporters after the court session on Wednesday.
The incident unfolded as Lyle was en route to Miami International Airport with his wife, actress Ana Araujo, and their two young children. His brother-in-law, Lucas Delfino, was driving them to the airport to catch a flight back to Mexico. Delfino’s son was also in the car.
Delfino accidentally got off onto Northwest 27th Avenue off the Dolphin Expressway. Trying to make a U-turn to get back on the expressway, he cut off Hernandez. Both cars stopped at the intersection of Northwest 27th Avenue and 14th Street.
Widely circulated surveillance video shows Hernandez got out and angrily banged on the driver’s window of the other car. Delfino got out of the car and the two began cursing at each other. Delfino’s car was not in park and started rolling into the intersection.
Delfino ran back to the car to put it in park. In that moment, as Hernandez walked back toward his own car, Lyle got out of the passenger seat and ran toward the motorist and punched him.
A Miami-Dade prosecutor described the blow as “extraordinary.”