the Instagram model who caused a chain reaction crash in Miami allegedly while high on pink cocaine is now facing new upgraded charges as more details come out about her dangerous decisions we're discussing all the latest developments in the case against Macy lathers with former prosecutor Melba Pearson welcome to sidebar presented by laon crime I'm SRA gesy now we first told you about Macy Marie lathers here on sidebar earlier this month when she appeared in bond court in a green jail vest looking much different from her usual social media posts the 24-year-old is a self-proclaimed artist and model and now faces 12 charges in connection with a three car crash that put her in the hospital and killed two people according to police lathers had been speeding in downtown Miami when she ran a red light in her mercedesbenz she slammed into a Range Rover which then hit a Suzuki and two people in that vehicle the driver and the passenger in the back seat were both killed LA's originally faced eight counts when she first appeared in court where it was revealed that not only did she not have a driver's license but she'd been banned from having one after the crash there's video surveillance of her exiting the vehicle and walking northbound away from the crash never rendering Aid or calling 911 to assist those who were injured in the crash unknown bystanders grabbed a pendant and took her back to the scene of the crash and held her until the police arrived so basically the cars all were all um landed in different locations and when the police arrived they saw that she was under the influence I guess they police were assisting her they asked her question she advised she was under the influence of two see a known party drug and that she was from the future and had a crystal ball and she was placed in the recovery position until fire rescue arrived because she was vomiting and so um victim one had to be extracted from the vehicle three and was transported to the hospital rder trauma and in critical condition and was later dis pronounced deceased due to his injuries victim two was removed from vehicle 3 and transported to Jackson with facial and arm lacerations vehicle victim 3 was pronounced deceased on the scene um by the fire rescue victim four was transported to jmh with in stable condition so there's two people that died and two that were injured she the vehicle was registered to her but she doesn't have a floor his driver's license and a further search revealed that under her date of birth and name she has a florid a driver's license and it was suspended indefinitely January 16th of 2024 so that's what this Cas is about according to Witnesses and police on the scene lathers told authorities that she was high on a party drug called pink cocaine and that she was a time traveler if you'll believe that pink cocaine is also called juicy it's kind of become more popular in Miami over the last few years and according to an NYU medical school report that was published just last year it's usually a combination of a lot of different things from ketamine ecstasy cocaine meth opioids and other psychoactives researchers say it's pink in color really just for looks Hey listen up I have something you're not going to want to miss today upside is sponsoring long crimes YouTube take over and here's what you get out of it free cash seriously you just download the app and the money can get transferred straight into your bank account I've started using it on things like filling up my gas which normally I'm not super passionate about but this makes it a lot more enjoyable all you have to do is download the app pay as usual with credit or debit and then follow the steps in the app to get paid to find out how much you could earn click the link in the description to download upside or scan the Q R code on the screen and use our promo code LC takeover and get an extra 25 cents back on every gallon on your first tank of gas lathers now faces more charges bringing the total up to 12 after prosecutors got the results of a vehicle data search warrant that data showed that lathers had pressed her foot down on the gas pedal at the time of the crash so she was driving around 80 M an hour and the speed limit on that road was 30 her upgraded charges now include Reckless vehicular homicide and reckless driving causing serious bodily injury when she appeared in bond court on those charges this time she was wearing an orange jail jumpsuit her attorney told the court via Zoom that he wasn't told about this hearing until the very last minute now she's facing the additional charges of vehicular homicide and depending on the toxicology results she may also face additional charges of DUI manslaughter I don't know what you know why we're here without the state providing me notice that this is going to take place this is this is an ambush your honor a judge had previously set ls's Bond at $140,000 which lathers had posted she was reportedly preparing to be released when the prosecution filed additional charges $26,000 was added to the previous bail amount plus stricter rules for ls's house arest rest she was released just this week there's a lot to unpack in this case so let's get right to it with Melba Pearson a former prosecutor right there in Florida Mela thank you for coming on today thank you so much for having me super excited to dive into this because there's some interesting aspects here and one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you specifically is you're in Miami so what's the vibe down there about this story I think most people are kind of like what the fill in the blank right because it was just it's such a bizarre story and you know we're no strangers sadly to people using drugs and strange things happening because the reality is Miami is You Know M like certain cities across the world is a Party Hub right so we are no stranger to people drinking too much partying too much and things going arai but pink cocaine most of us had never heard of that we only remembered like kind of Pablo Escobar Like Cocaine was white so now obviously they're calling it as a nickname pink cocaine it's really ketaman with other um additives that make it Pink but you know we we had the epidemic of bath salts at one point you know maybe about 10 years ago where we had someone who was under the influence and engaged in some very cannibalistic acts right so this is not abnormal for Miami but I just think the series of events and the fact that you know two people were horribly victimized as a result of this this was in a Major Street so this was North Miami Avenue which crosses through some major cities and areas within the Metro Miami area so the location made it scary in terms of more people could have been hurt that's sort of the thought process I seem to be hearing on socials and just kind of colloquially around the community the pink cocaine is part of it that's really making headlines and I want to talk about that for a second I first heard about this in the Lil Rod filing in against pidi the civil suit that we've talked about so many times here on sidebar and that's when we first heard about the pink cocaine and now we're hearing about it again I know Diddy has a house in Miami and you said sometimes drugs have their Trends is this something that you're seeing a lot in Miami then I can't say that I'm seeing a lot per se but it seems to be more like that Designer drug right like it's not something that you would necessarily go to your you know for a lack of a better word going to your dealer on the corner and getting right this seems to be more of a party drug akin to what ecstasy and MDMA was to the early 2000s in the late 90s like this is the kind of the trendy drug that's used at parties used that in certain circles and you know again I mean it does have serious effects not that I've ever taken it not that I could recognize it but because ketamine the base is ketamine and ketamine is literally horse tranquilizer so you can only imagine the types of uh after effects that people experience while on this drug and it makes it more logical in terms of the strange statement she made to law enforcement the way she was behaving it's all very consistent with some of the strange effects that you would see with ketaman plus additives which basically would be the pink cocaine but here's the hard part for the defendant because so often we cover stories where the person is drunk or high and we've learned pretty quickly that's not a defense just because you were drinking and driving or you were drinking and you were on some sort of drug that's not really a defense you can't just claim that so what sort of Defense could she even have in this case I mean I think her defense would you know could be again did not see all of the statements that were available but it might be possible that she may claim involuntary intoxication so in other words she was quote unquote rofi somebody put it in her drink she didn't know something along those lines but based on my understanding of the way it's injested that's not likely right so so it's because it's not something that comes in a liquid that could easily be you know hidden and then and put in someone's drink and you wouldn't know like you have to make a conscious effort to take it so I don't think the involuntary intoxication defense would work here um I I only think she could basically claim I'm sorry I did you know I I didn't mean to hurt anyone I didn't mean to act in this manner this is out of character for me um I'm willing to go to rehab I'm willing to pay restitution I'm willing to do anything you tell me to do basically because I'm in the wrong here I I think kind of a Mula uh approach is going to be the best here because there's not a lot that you can really defend you've got you know Witnesses on site you've got the police officers and their testimony you know I'm sure there's going to be some sort of medical evidence in terms of testing to be able to establish that she was under the influence or whether it must have been probably a blood test that was able to identify that that's what was in her system at the time of the crime so there there's going to be an overwhelming amount of evidence showing that she was under the influence of an illicit drug and that she caused harm as a result so I don't see much of a defense here this is basically how quickly can I take a plea and what adds to that too is the fact that she didn't have a license at the time she was driving and then we later found out she was banned from having a license they said you can't even have one so I know we talk talked about her defense maybe I'm sorry taking a plea deal in this case it seems to me that she knew between right and wrong she knows she doesn't have a license and she got behind the wheel I mean what do you make of that well you know I'm always of two minds when it comes to people not having a license in Florida I mean there's some reasons that are uh income driven let's put it that way why some people don't have a license so for instance if you end up um getting uh maybe you get into accident or maybe you got too many tickets and it piled up you didn't pay them on time the interest compounded and now out of a lack of Financial Resources you can't pay your tickets which then results in your license being suspended that's a little different than someone let's say getting a previous DUI and then being banned from driving as a result because that that's just a whole different that's not a need-based type situation and then also on top of it Florida especially Miami Miami is very difficult from the standpoint that we don't have any real public transportation down here so if you're trying to get to work trying to get your kid to school or you know there's an emergency and you need to get to the hospital something along those lines if you don't have a license you know I can see scenarios where you hop behind the wheel of a car because you don't have any you don't feel you have any other choice not saying it's Justified but whatever but I can see how someone gets into that position but being in a situation where you're out partying and you're driving to the party using drugs and then trying to drive away from the party yeah that that's not one that's going to be sympathetic to any jury or you know basically any any Court in this state I know we talked about this potentially ending in a plea deal but let's say that it does go to a jury trial you spoke about how a jury would feel about all this and we know that she crashed her mercedesbenz so kind of a high-end vehicle and she's also an Instagram model so she's kind of living the quintessential Miami life and we did talk about this it's kind of a party area I've been there before it does seem like that but if you're collecting a jury from the entire area are they I mean these are people who live there they don't come there for a weekend to party they're ones who actually live there day in day out what do you think a jury would think about all that oh jury would hate it they would hate her behavior they would uh you know I was the prosecutor in the case absolutely I'd be bringing in her Instagram post from that particular day right because that is relevant to her state of mind and the events leading up to the the horrible you know tragic outcome that we saw at you know at the end of the analysis so when people start to see the Instagram page the you know posing and very like I'm in Miami I'm living my best life to the detriment of others to the detriment of residents I I I don't see any jury coming back with a not- guilty verdict because again especially the residents are often tired of this type of behavior you know not that there's anything wrong with partying and all of that but when it spills over to the point that people get hurt when it starts to interfere with people's quality of life you have many residents who have negative stories in terms of uh you know Memorial Day Weekend foring break or you know other high impact holidays whether it be the ult Music Fest or you know any of these kind of events that bring uh large amounts of people while yes everyone loves the tax advantage and bringing in more influx of money into the the city and the state at the same token when you have people that end up going too far and harming others I I can't say that Miami residents are going to turn their head away and say oh it's just a young kid having fun especially to this level of injury and just sheer Carnage basically obviously you know a lot about Miami being right there I mean you can kind of give us a sense of what the neighborhoods would be like or what a jury would be like but you also have this major background as a prosecutor right there so as far as the prosecution side of things what do you think they're going to bring forward with the case I mean I I think at the end of the day it's about the scientific evidence that shows that she was under the influence so uh blood tests the evidence from the the testimony from the officers who pulled her over and how she was acting including the strange statements she made uh her demeanor you know were her eyes GL you know glassy all of the different indicators that shows that she was under the influence and then of course you know the accident reconstruction all of those aspects and you know the the injury that was uh levied on on the two victims and all of that medical testimony in ter ter of what happened to the two victims so all of that's going to come into play as well and then if there's any surveillance if there's any you know so for instance if the party was at you know one of the hotels let's say on brickl right brickl is a very trendy area and there's often a lot of parties and all of that well likely those high-end buildings will have security cameras in the lobby and that sort of thing I'd be seeking to bring in that evidence to show the condition she was when she came in the condition she was when she left and that clearly she knew she wasn't fit to drive so it's basically like proving a Dy case on the most basic level but then you layer in all of the other crimes on top of it we've kind of hypothesized what's going to happen that this would end in a plea deal rather than going to some sort of jury trial what do you think those negotiations would look like between both sides and what could she end up with as a sentence so I think the negotiations from the defense persp perspective they're going to want to ensure she doesn't serve jail time depending on what her criminal history is which I don't have that information available this juncture I don't recall anything being said publicly about it if she doesn't have a criminal history there is a possibility that she may get a year or two maybe a year in jail or two you know two years in prison something along those lines followed by probation if her defense is able to really make an argument around maybe she's struggling with addiction she has checked herself into rehab I mean if I was her defense attorney she'd be in rehab right now problem or no problem she's in rehab right now because in that way you can go back to the judge and argue listen my client went and on her own initiative went to rehab tried to address some of the issues that brought her to this point she's in counseling she's not likely to reoffend so those are the types of arguments the defense is going to probably try and make and maybe try to negotiate something where she may be on house arrest for maybe a year or so followed by probation with the conditions of her continuing therapy continuing rehab that sort of thing but I don't see that the prosecution is necessarily going to be leaning towards that lenient of a sentence so I think that's where the rub is going to be in terms of the negotiation process definitely want to follow and see what happens as far as any potential negotiations but any any way you spin it this is a devastating case but thank you again Melba for coming on and kind of giving us some insight about it my pleasure thank you so much lathers is expected back in court for her arraignment after the Labor Day holiday and a memorial was held for the victims who died in the crash Abraham Ismael and his friend Jesus Rubio Abraham's partner Wanita Hernandez was the passenger in the Suzuki she was injured but she survived she started to go funme to cover f feral expenses and she wrote on the page quote on August 10th 2024 my beloved partner Abraham ISL and I were on our way to work when our car was struck by a reckless driver who was under the influence of alcohol and drugs the impact was devastating my partner and another passenger lost their lives while I was left hospitalized and deeply shaken Abraham's 16-year-old son has been left without the love and care of his father who was his entire world I'm now unable to work due to my injuries and the boy's life has been turned upside down his mother who lives in Nicaragua suffers from Parkinson's disease and is now not only grieving but also left without the financial support her son provided we are humbly asking for you to help during this difficult time to cover funeral expenses so that Abraham can have a dignified farewell surrounded by his loved ones if you're interested in donating we've actually put a link to that fundraising page below this video that's all today for sidebar but make sure you subscribe to us on Spotify Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts I'm SRA Gillespie and this has been sidebar presented by laon crime [Music]