Jurors: Suspect at fault
Man convicted as driver in biker’s death, acquitted of DUI manslaughter
A jury has settled the dispute over who was driving a pickup truck that killed a Boca Raton bicyclist.
It’s a guilty verdict for Paul Maida Jr., the 32-year-oldWest Boca man who had put the blame on his ex-lover Bianca Fichtel. Police had originally charged her with the crime, and excused Maida as the passenger.
After five hours of deliberation, the six jurors on Thursday agreed with prosecutors that Maida — not Fichtel — was behind the wheel on April 6, 2014 when the Ford F-150 slammed into George Morreale, 65, in a bike lane along Yamato Road.
Maida was convicted of three charges, including leaving the scene of a crash involving death, which is a felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison. But the panel acquitted him of a DUI manslaughter count.
Maida was taken into custody and will remain at Palm Beach County Jail until he is sentenced by Circuit Judge Charges Burton on Sept. 13.
Maida also was found guilty of driving while license canceled, suspended or revoked causing serious bodily injury; and false report of a crime.
Defense attorney Resnick told the jury there was no basis for the DUI manslaughter charge because police never tested his client’s blood alcohol level.
Prosecutors Amy Berkman and Laura Laurie leaned on the police officer’s observation at
the crash scene that Maida appeared incoherent and couldn’t stand unassisted.
George Morreale’s wife and two children were in the courtroom throughout the three-day trial. They are suing Maida for wrongful death damages in civil court. She declined to comment after the verdict.
The case turned on hundreds of post-crash emails between the former couple, in which Maida repeatedly expressed his love for her and a desire to “do the right thing” and face charges.
Once Boca Raton Police and prosecutors viewed the emails, they cleared Fichtel and arrested Maida in late 2015.
In their closing arguments to the jury Thursday, prosecutors called Maida a “coward” for allowing his then girlfriend to face the prospect of prison while he enjoyed his freedom.
But defense attorney Robert Resnick, after losing a battle this week to keep the emails away from the jury, argued Fichtel had manipulated a love sick, intellectually
inferior Maida into his written promises that he wouldn’t let her “take the fall.”
Fichtel, 27, testified Wednesday that her life was falling apart while on house arrest and she begged Maida “to tell the truth.”
As the prosecution’s key witness, Fichtel told the jury shewas looking down at her phone when she heard a loud bang, saw the hood of the pickup smashed and demanded that Maida turn around. After he refused, Fichte ls aid she got out of her seat, climbed over Maida in the cab, took the steering wheel, and drove back to the crash scene just west of Interstate 95.
But she was loopy from the effects of prescription drugs she was taking after injuring her knee and going to the hospital for treatment a day earlier. She told a cop she was driving and Maida didn’t say otherwise.
Days later, Maida told investigators Fichtel hit the bicyclist and that he couldn’t drive because he didn’t have a license.
Police interviewed other motorists who heard the crash, including a woman who followed the pickup
and called 911, but none of the witnesses could identify the driver.
Even after Fichtel’s July 2014 arrest, she and Maida remained close until later in the fall. Maida’s attorney argued that Fichtel’s decision to stay in a romantic relationship showed she was at fault. After separating for good that November, they began emailing nonstop.
“I’m going to do the right thing ... it’s what I should have done from the start,” Maida wrote to Fichtel in January 2015, adding he wanted to “step up to the plate and fix this. I’m so disgusted with myself and my actions.”
Fichtel testified she grew more and more anxious while Maida, an out of work former security guard, didn’t turn himself into the authorities. “I didn’t kill him. I don’t deserve this. You’ve ruined my life,” she wrote in a February 2015 email. “You’re not man enough to own up to what you did.”
At one point, Maidawrote her to say, “I’m going to turn myself in tomorrow.” He didn’t, and following her lawyer’s advice, she brought some emails to the State Attorney’s Office.