MIAMI — Angela Pico apologized to the victims of a hit-and-run crash after pleading guilty in a Miami-Dade courtroom on Wednesday. But they told a judge that her punishment doesn’t come close to matching the pain she caused.
Pico, then 31, was accused of badly injuring Nelson Garcia on Oct. 19, 2024, as he and his partner, Lukas Ruiz, rode scooters along the Broad Causeway bridge in Bay Harbor Islands. She fled the scene and Garcia was left badly hurt.
“I truly am sorry,” she told the couple.
But Garcia said the North Miami Beach woman’s apology was insufficient.
“It’s too late for that,” he said. “She had her opportunity that day at the bridge.”
Garcia said his life has been forever changed.
“I spent around three months in the hospital after the accident,” he said. “I had, so far, nine surgeries, and I have my body full of scars. I won’t be able to walk again the same way. I won’t be able to run.”
Pico, now 32, was sentenced to five years of probation and 100 hours of community service. Additionally, during that five-year term, she’ll have to spend every Oct. 19 in jail.
Garcia told the court he felt that her sentence was far too lenient.
“I don’t see justice there. I understand and respect your decision. I won’t go against that,” Garcia said. “This is a failure for what I’ve been fighting for the last year and a half.”
Ruiz said, “We finally got our verdict in the court. It’s been a very long journey. It’s been a very long, painful and emotional journey.”
The judge granted a downward departure in this case, but Pico is considered a convicted felon.
In the downward departure motion, her attorney, Richard Cooper, called Pico’s actions “an impulsive response under acute stress rather than criminal intent.”
He said Pico has a “longstanding history” of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and anxiety that “impaired her stress response and impulse regulation and contextualize the offense without excusing it.”
Additionally, Cooper noted that Pico has already suffered severe reputational consequences due to news coverage of the incident, including an inability to find a job or romantic partner.
While in the court hearing, the judge was made aware of prior driving infractions against her and, for that reason, she added 12 hours of driving school as part of her sentence.
Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com - All rights reserved.
