ey Biscayne resident Carlos Bertonatti Jr. was in court last week for a status hearing on the over three-year-old hit-and-run on the Rickenbacker Causeway that killed cyclist Christophe Lecanne, but he’ll wait until August to learn his sentence.
Bertonatti Jr. pleaded guilty to felony DUI manslaughter and failure to render aid in February. According to Miami-Dade Criminal Court records, sentencing is set for Thursday, August 15.
Based on sentencing guidelines, Bertonatti Jr., 32, faces a minimum of 11.56 years in prison and a maximum of 35 years. Because he made his plea directly to the court – meaning there was no plea deal between the defense and prosecution – his sentence will be up to Criminal Court Judge Bronwyn Miller, who is presiding over the case.
The August sentencing hearing marks another delay in the drawn-out case.
At the time of Bertonatti Jr.’s plea, sentencing had been set for Thursday, May 2; court records later listed Tuesday, May 21, as the date and then posted a hearing July 9.
Most recently, Judge Miller heard motions May 2 and status reports Friday, May 10; and at the most recent hearing rescheduled sentencing to Thursday, August 15, at 10 a.m.
Bertonatti Jr. pleaded guilty February 26 to felony DUI manslaughter and failure to aid charges, as well as felony counts of fleeing and eluding police and leaving the scene and misdemeanor counts of resisting a police officer without violence.
At the hearing, he said getting behind the wheel the day of the crash was “the biggest mistake of my life,” and his most significant punishment is that “what I took is irreplaceable.”
Bertonatti Jr., an aspiring pop musician, was accused of driving home to the Key drunk – his blood alcohol content was recorded at 0.122, over the legal limit of 0.08 – early in the morning of Sunday, January 18, 2010. Police reports state he struck Lecanne on Bear Cut Bridge and then continued driving at a high speed toward his condominium on Grapetree Drive, all the while dragging Lecanne’s mangled bike in the undercarriage of his Volkswagen Jetta.
He was arrested after stopping in front of his home.