Man Responsible For Crash That Killed Three People Given 10-Day Jail Sentence
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) – There was an unexpected and upsetting ending in the case of a man who killed three people on Krome Avenue in West Miami-Dade 4 years ago.
A Miami-Dade judge sentenced Eric Betancourt, 24, to 10 days in jail, spread out over a ten-year period.
Betancourt plead guilty to three counts of vehicular manslaughter.
"After four plus years that we were working on this case, two judges and three assistant district attorneys, it came to an end on Monday," said Rita Marti, whose son, Anthony Rodriguez, was one of the three victims killed in the crash.
Rodriguez was an up-and-coming electronic dance music DJ known as "DJ SonicC".
He and two others, including the defendant's sister, were killed when Betancourt veered into the wrong lane crashing head on.
Betancourt was facing at least 27 years in prison and the victim's mother hoped he'd be sentenced to at least a couple of years.
"The standards are there for a reason. And if the minimum was 27 years.... he was a young boy and some people were saying it was an accident but his tire didn't blow up, nothing fell in front of him. He was driving recklessly," said Marti.
Marti wants something done so that other families don't go through what she's going through.
"What I'd like to see happen is to take away the freedom of the judges to ignore standards. You can't give one person so much power to do whatever they want," said Marti.
Betancourt was not found to be impaired.
The State Attorney's Office said that since the defendant made an open plea of guilty to the court, they only learned of the sentence as the judged handed it down in court.