Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Suspect passes drug test
Man, then 19, was suspected of DUI in crash that killed teen
The driver in a fatal police chase passed a drug test a few days later, leading his attorney to question whether the chase was justified in the first place.
Coconut Creek police say they chased Fabreece Ductan, then 19, after smelling marijuana and alcohol coming from his car, but he sped off and crashed into another car, killing his passenger, Abigail Espinoza, 18, of Margate.
Three days after the Dec. 2 chase, a courtordered drug test found no drugs or alcohol in Ductan’s system, allowing him to recently settle a separate legal case, according to his lawyer and court records.
If marijuana stays in a person’s system for 30 days, and Ductan’s system had no trace of the substance, how could he have been under the influence of pot? asked his attorney, John Weekes.
Ductan also was tested for drugs and alcohol at the hospital soon after the Dec. 2 crash, and those results are pending. It’s unclear if the results will show any alcohol in his system.
A police report says Ductan admitted drinking alcohol, but Weekes disputes that.
The drug test Ductan took on Dec. 5 stems from a separate legal case. Ductan was arrested in December 2016 in Coral Springs on a charge of possession of marijuana. And when the court learned of the recent police chase, he was ordered by a judge to take the drug test.
The test “shows his blood was clean,” Weekes said.
After submitting to the drug test, Ductan was allowed to resolve the case with a plea deal and was sentenced to 18 months of
probation, court records show.
Coconut Creek Police Chief Albert “Butch” Arenal said he was unaware of the results of the Dec. 5 drug test. He said the agency is still putting its investigation together.
The chase began after Officer Rocco Favata went to a Coconut Creek apartment complex on an unrelated noise complaint about screaming coming from a balcony, and happened upon Ductan and Espinoza in a parked car, police said.
Favata said he smelled alcohol and marijuana, and inside the car he saw a liquor bottle, as well as a mason jar with the leafy substance, police said. Favata wrote in a report that “the driver looked up at me and appeared extremely spacey. His eyes were glassy and bloodshot.”
The teens took off, police say. Favata said Ductan almost sideswiped the parked car next to them, and it gave him “grave concern that the driver posed an imminent threat of physical harm to the public.”
Officers chased the Buick for at least 2 or 3 miles from Coconut Creek to Margate, hitting speeds of nearly double the speed limit, sometimes with the lights and sirens turned off, records show.
Police’s in-car camera system, which logs speeds and GPS location, recorded two officers clocking in at up to 78 mph on Rock Island Road during the chase. The posted limit is 40 mph.
About 12:30 a.m., the Buick crashed into another car on Rock Island Road, police said. Espinoza was taken to a hospital and died. Ductan and the driver of the other car were taken to Northwest Regional Hospital. Both were treated and released.
At the crash site, an officer is heard saying they found a “bunch of weed all over the car,” according to police dashboard-camera recordings.
A police report doesn’t say if they seized any marijuana as evidence.
Dashboard-camera footage shows officers didn’t know how many people were in the car they were chasing.
The officer was close enough to see Ductan’s eyes before the chase, but “couldn’t tell how many people were in the car?” Weekes asked.
Moments after the crash, police repeatedly asked Ductan how many people were in the Buick. One officer told the others, “I could have sworn there was a third guy in the back seat, man.” It was then that officers realized only two people were in the car.
Arenal said it’s not uncommon for officers to be unclear about how many people are in a vehicle.
“There was certainly no doubt who was driving the vehicle,” Arenal said. “He saw him behind the wheel.”
Ductan, who couldn’t be reached to comment for this story, is expected to face criminal charges in Espinoza’s death, according to police.
Ductan and Espinoza were longtime friends, said Ductan’s father, Fedelait “Fed” Ductan.
They met as elementary school students at church, Christian Life Center in Tamarac, his father said. Espinoza often visited Ductan’s Margate home so they could watch TV and talk, his father said.
Ductan, of Margate, recently turned 20. Espinoza was a recent Coral Springs High graduate with college plans, according to her obituary.
Ductan, who was driving his father’s Buick on Dec. 2, regrets the tragedy, Fedelait Ductan said.
“He’s crying every day,” his father said. “This is not something you wanted to happen. He regrets it.”