FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A Broward Circuit Court judge on Wednesday re-sentenced the driver of a gasoline tanker involved in a fatal crash that killed four members of the same family.
The judge sentenced 41-year-old Flavio Santisteban to 17 years in prison, minus time served, followed by 10 years probation.
In Dec. 2008, the judge who sentenced Santisteban to 36 years in prison cited Jewish tradition, leading to the original sentence being overturned.
Santisteban was driving a tanker truck carrying 9,000 gallons of gasoline when he lost control of the big rig on the on-ramp from Interstate 595 to the northbound lanes of Florida's Turnpike in February 2005. The truck flipped and exploded.
Pinned between the blazing tanker and the guard rail was a passenger car carrying Anita Epstein of Coconut Creek, her niece, Gloria Halpern of Potomac, Md., her nephew, Allen Klein, and his wife, Debbie, who were in town to visit an ailing relative.
Prosecutors said Santiestaban was driving too fast around the sharp curve. At the trial, experts said the tanker was traveling between 42 and 45 mph; the speed limit is 35 mph.