Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Cop aquitted of DUI, guilty of reckless driving
“Without his headlights on, he might as well have had a blindfold on.”
Jurors on Monday acquitted an ex-Miami Beach police officer of drunken driving charges, but found him guilty of reckless driving for an ATV joyride that critically injured two on the South Beach sand.
Thejury deliberated a little over two hours in acquitting Derick Kuilan of the felony DUI charges, a surprising verdict because prosecutors had a toxicology report that showed he was legally drunk five hours after the crash.
But Kuilan nevertheless facesupto five years in prison for the reckless driving convictions. He was immediately taken into custody to await sentencing.
The saga of Kuilan — who went on the ATV joyride while on duty and with a woman celebrating her bachelorette party — drew national headlines and proved a major embarrassment for a police department already marred by controversy.
Kuilan should have known he could have plowed into pedestrians that night on the sand at Fourth Street in July 2011.
“Without his headlights on, he might as well have had a blindfold on,” MiamiDade prosecutor David I. Gilbert told jurors Monday during closing arguments. “Everybody said it was pitch-black out there.”
His defense attorney, EvanHoffman, shot back, saying prosecutors had not proven that Kuilan was drunk at the time of the crash.
“Bad judgment is not impairment,” Hoffman told jurors.
Kuilan, 33, and another uniformed officer met the woman and her friends at the Clevelander hotel — where the women were attending a bachelorette party — in July 2011. Their meeting was captured in a now-notorious photo, with Kuilan sneering in a toocool pose alongside the youngwomen.
The bachelorette, Adalee Martin Jones, told jurors thatKuilan, whowas inuniform, offered her a ride and she trustedhim“becausehe was a police officer.”
With Martin hanging on to Kuilan, the two zoomed down the sand to South Pointe, then turned around — with the officer flicking the headlights on and off in the darkness, she said.
But on the way back, prosecutors say, the ATV had no lights on when it crashed into Luis Almonte and Kitzie Nicanor, two friends who had walked to the water’s edge to watch the sun rise.
Almonte suffered a broken femur, while Nicanor lost her spleen, suffered a hip injury and received brain trauma.
“She doesn’t remember things. She has uncontrollable emotions,” Gilbert told the jury. “She’s not working now. She may never work again. She is the unlucky one.”