Woman in fatal hit-run given 1 year in jail
Sentence, short of state guidelines, adds annual videotaped confession.
WEST PALM BEACH — The 23-yearold cheerleading coach who left the scene of a 2014 Boynton Beach crash that killed a 15-year-old will spend a year in jail and the next 10 years on probation, a judge has ruled.
The sentencing for Amanda Dahl on Friday comes more than a month after she pleaded guilty to a first-degree felony charge of leaving the scene of an accident involving a death for the crash that killed Khiar Raymond.
In sentencing Dahl to 364 days in jail, Circuit Judge Samantha Schosberg Feuer went below the four-year minimum recommended sentence under state sentencing guidelines. The judge read from a sentencing memo for about 10 minutes Friday before pronouncing the sentence.
As part of the sentence, Dahl can apply to end her 10-year probation early after eight years, but on the anniversary of the crash each year she is on probation, Dahl will have to record and post a YouTube video from the scene of the crash and talk about how she left the scene.
Dahl also will have to perform 500 hours of community service, and her license will be revoked for 10 years.
After the hearing, Raymond’s relatives said the only thing they could agree with the judge, prosecutors and defense attorney on Dahl’s case was that she never set out to kill him. But while Assistant State Attorney Judith Arco and defense attorney John Cleary called the crash a pure accident and said Dahl would not have faced any criminal charges had she stayed on the scene, some members of his family were skeptical.
“If it were an accident, why not just stay and face the music?” Raymond’s great aunt, Steph- anie McKoy, asked. “What this sentence today does is it sends a message to the community that if I go out there and hit someone, I’m better off taking my chances and leaving the scene because I might just get a year in jail instead of something more.”
During the first part of Dahl’s sentencing hearing July 18, McKoy and other relatives and friends made tearful pleas to Feuer, asking her to give Dahl the maxi-