BY DAN HILDEBRAN
An 18-year-old Lake City man was sentenced to 18 months in prison after he pleaded to fleeing from deputies and leaving the scene after crashing his car at Starke’s Winn Dixie.
Yandel Santana pleaded to felony fleeing and eluding and leaving the scene of a crash without serious bodily injury.
According to a complaint, Bradford Deputy Sheriff Trinton Lovell saw a vehicle traveling 72 mph in a 45-mph zone northbound through Lawtey around 4:35 a.m. on November 23, 2023.
Lovell reported that he made a U-turn to conduct a traffic stop, and the vehicle also made a U-turn into the southbound lanes, leaving the city at approximately 120 mph and reaching a top speed of 138.
The deputy pursued the vehicle onto the Starke bypass while the driver of the fleeing car turned off the vehicle’s lights and threw objects out to hinder the officer’s pursuit.
Lovell added that he stopped chasing the car after it exited the expressway and headed toward Starke on State Road 100 because of safety concerns.
The deputy wrote that while driving to the sheriff’s office to complete his report, he saw the fleeing vehicle crashed at Starke’s Winn Dixie.
Lying in the parking lot was the rear-seat passenger with a deep laceration above her right knee. Both the driver, identified as Santana, and the front passenger had fled.
Deputies later arrested the defendant. The charges he pleaded to carry a maximum consecutive sentence of 20 years. However, he had no previous convictions.
In a letter to the court, an attorney from Apopka wrote that the defendant had volunteered over the last four years in a softball tournament fundraiser for a nonprofit founded to prevent children from drowning.
“Over the last four years,” wrote Chrislie Lopez, “Yandel has proven to be a reliable volunteer, always eager to help and with a positive attitude. Even after he moved from the Orlando area, he would still drive the 3 hours from Lake City to Apopka to attend the softball tournament every year.”
