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Charges Dropped Against Alleged Driver in Florida Car Crash

Three years ago, John Kelly, a taxi driver, was killed in a violent car accident.  The ambulance crew found him partially ejected from his cab.

Leyana M. Rich, who was 18 years old at the time of the crash, was found behind the wheel of the other car, a Ford Taurus.  Rich was charged with vehicular homicide because the Taurus was fleeing from police and had run a stop sign before it collided with Kelly’s cab, according to court documents.

Rich has spent two years in jail awaiting trial, but prosecutors are now saying that she wasn’t driving the Ford Taurus after all.

The Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney’s Office dropped charges against Rich last month and is now charging her boyfriend, Luke Irons, who was also 18 years old at the time of the accident on February 2, 2006.  Irons was nowhere to be found when paramedics arrived at the crash scene.

According to court documents and prosecutors, Irons has admitted that he was the driver.  He admitted to driving the Ford Taurus after he was give a 30 year jail sentence last year after numerous crimes in Hendry County.

“We were operating under the premise she was the driver.  Once our expert was of the opinion she was not driving and he was – and now you had the guy confessing – it put us in the position where we couldn’t go forward with it against her,” said Chief Assistant State Attorney Bruce Bartlett.

Before the accident, Irons and Rich had been at a drug house and took off after someone tried to rob them.  A police officer spotted the car and attempted to pull it over.  The police officer said he saw Rich behind the wheel.

It was the officer’s observation and Rich being found behind the wheel after the accident that led to the vehicular homicide charge.  However, DNA tests showed that Irons’ blood was on the airbag on the driver’s side, not hers.

Prosecutors have filled out the paperwork to charge Irons with vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of an accident involving death.

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