South Florida forgets that Fernandez tragedy was also a crime

It was 3 a.m. and with an imprudence fueled by alcohol and cocaine, José Fernandez was driving at a perilous speed, careening through the dark at 65.7 miles an hour when his boat smashed into the jetty leading to the Port of Miami.

The high-performance boat flipped onto the rocky jetty. Fernandez and his two companions were killed. It was a tragedy. And a crime. If Fernandez had survived his drunken misadventure, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife investigators, he’d have faced DUI manslaughter charges.

Death spared Fernandez from criminal prosecution. His status as a local sports hero spared him the ignominy society usually heaps on intoxicated drivers who cause innocent deaths.

In South Florida, DUI killers with celebrity or money or social status are granted special dispensation.

It was five years ago this weekend when the

Marlins pitcher’s death shocked South Florida, an anniversary that has inspired another round of tributes and sad remembrances. That it was a tragedy of his own making has been relegated to an afterthought.

Fernandez’s biography — so much a Miami story — has kept the taint from his legacy. He had arrived here at age 15, a refugee escaped from Cuba, to become the Marlins’ all-star pitcher. References to the two innocent victims of the hero’s folly, Emilio Jesus Macias, 27, and Eduardo Rivero, 25, only clunk up the narrative.

It’s not just beloved sports stars given a pass for transgressions that would ruin the lives and reputations of lesser beings. F. Scott Fitzgerald might have been referring to the outcome of South Florida DUI cases when he wrote, “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.”

The Broward judicial system embraced that difference in 2009, after a speeding Porsche driven by Ryan LeVin, the scion of a wealthy Chicago family, jumped the curb along A1A on Fort Lauderdale Beach and killed two pedestrians. LeVin sped away, ditched his $120,000 sports car by the interstate, then lied to police, claiming someone else had been behind the wheel.

LeVin was already on probation for leading Illinois cops on a high-speed chase that left a police officer and two other motorists injured. His lawyers didn’t have much of an argument for leniency.

But after LeVin agreed to pay an undisclosed sum to his victims’ families, Broward Circuit Judge Barbara McCarthy dispensed a kind of justice available only to the rich. LeVin was sentenced to two years of house arrest in his beachfront condo.

I counted three DUI manslaughter convictions in Broward courts the month before LeVin’s sentencing, netting prison sentences of four, nine and 15 years. None of those cases involved leaving the scene of the accident or lying to police. But none of the defendants were so fabulously wealthy.

That same year, lawyers for pro football star Donte Stallworth negotiated a similar bloodmoney agreement after his Bentley struck a pedestrian on Miami Beach. The victim’s family went along with the deal after receiving another “undisclosed sum,” and Stallworth served just 30 days in jail.

Sentences in DUI manslaughter cases often depend on the inclinations of the victims’ families. In 2015, Kayla Mendoza, 20 at the time, cooperated with police, expressed remorse and pled guilty for causing a wrong-way collision on the Sawgrass Expressway. But the angry relatives of the two young women killed in the crash demanded a harsh sentence. Despite no prior criminal history, she was sentenced to 24 years in prison.

Later that year, a Miami Herald investigation of the wildly varying sentencing in similar DUI manslaughter cases, including drivers who had compounded their crime by fleeing the scene, found sentences ranged from four to 10 years. The disparities seemed to depend on the fervor or forgiveness of the victims’ families.

A badge can also skew the outcome. In a 1999 Broward case, an intoxicated FBI agent named David Farrall had sped south in the northbound lane of I-95, causing a head-on collision that killed two young brothers heading home from choir practice. But the Florida Highway Patrol first tried to blame the crash on the victims. Eventually, after FHP dishonesty was exposed, Farrall was sentenced to 90 days. Lucky him. Sentences for DUI manslaughter in Florida average 10 years.

If José Fernandez had survived that awful crash five years ago, I’m guessing the outcome of a criminal prosecution would more closely resemble Dante Stallworth’s 30-days in jail than Kayla Mendoza’s quarter century in prison.

Let me tell you about sports heroes. They are different from you and me.

In South Florida, DUI killers with celebrity or money or social status are granted special dispensation.

Fred Grimm