Driver gets 6 years in Las Olas hit-run

A woman has been sentenced to six years in prison for fatally striking a tourist in a hit-and-run on Las Olas Boulevard last year.

Regina Goodrich, 27, of Coral Springs, apologized during Monday’s sentencing hearing, WPLG-Ch. 10 reported.

“I think back to that day and I regret leaving,” the station quoted Goodrich as saying. “I think back to that day and wish it never happened.”

Miguel Soler, a 58-year-old tourist from Carteret, N.J., died from being struck by the SUV driven by Goodrich.

Soler, his wife and son were enjoying the last night of their weeklong vacation in South Florida on July 1, 2017. They stopped their rented 2016 Jeep Renegade straddling the bicycle lane and right lane of westbound Las Olas Boulevard.

Soler went to pose for a photograph with the “Welcome to Fort Lauderdale Beach” sign. As he was getting back into the Jeep, Goodrich struck him while driving her father’s 2009 Ford Escape, authorities said. The impact sent Soler’s body flying, investigators said.

The SUV later was found about 10 blocks away, with significant front passenger side damage.

Goodrich testified she drove off, acting without thinking it through. “I caved into my fear and shock and lost the ability to think clearly about what I should do,” she said. “It wasn’t until afterward that I had found out I had hit Mr. Soler.”

Many people testified Monday on behalf of Goodrich, according to NBC 6.

"She has been absolutely torn apart by this," her brother, Patrick Lee Goodrich, said, according to the station.

Witnesses said Goodrich and her friends were drinking beer at a bar on Fort Lauderdale beach on and off for five hours before the incident, prosecutor Ross Weiner told a judge last year.

Goodrich, who was supposed to be the designated driver, discouraged her friends from taking an Uber ride home and insisted on driving, the prosecution said.

After hitting Soler, she refused to stop, the friends told investigators.

Soler’s wife, Vivian Soler, last year blamed Goodrich for her husband’s death. “Regina destroyed my family, my 26-year marriage and left my son orphaned,” Soler said at the time. Soler and her family also testified Monday to demand that Goodrich be held accountable.