MIAMI – A Hialeah teenager was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years in prison in connection with the April 2024 deaths of three women.
In February, Maykoll Santiesteban, 16, pleaded guilty in the case. He could have faced between 28 and 65 years in prison.
“He is still young; remember he is just a child,” Reynel Santiesteban, Maykoll’s father, said during Tuesday’s hearing as he asked the judge for leniency.
Police said Santiesteban, then 15, was driving nearly 55 mph over the speed limit in his father’s car when he slammed into a parked vehicle in the 400 block of Southeast Fifth Street on April 23, 2024.
Yarnia Garcia Hernandez, 39, and her aunt, Gloria Hernandez, 53, were pronounced dead at the scene.
Hernandez’s 66-year-old mother, Liliana Hernandez Molina, died from her injuries in September.
“We not only lost three lives that day, you took from us our sense of peace,” Gipsy Garcia, a relative of the victims, told Santiesteban.
In February, Santiesteban pleaded guilty in Miami-Dade court to three counts each of vehicular homicide and driving without a license causing death.
The teenager, charged as an adult, entered the plea without knowing his sentence.
In addition to prison time, Santiesteban will spend 15 years on probation and will not be allowed to have a driver’s license during that time.
“I pray that this is just a mistake you made, and that this does not define your life,” Miami-Dade Judge Christine Hernandez said.