A video posted to social media shows a screeching Mercedes driven by a 17-year-old girl smashing into the gate of a $17 million home on exclusive Mashta island. Police responded within minutes. No one was hurt, but there was at least $30,000 in damages and the young island driver was issued a citation.
Then, her careless driving ticket mysteriously disappeared. Now, it has been resubmitted after a series of inquiries by the Independent.
The surveillance video, provided by a resident who saw it on a WhatsApp chat, shows the squealing sedan driven by the 17-year-old crashing into the home’s security gate at 500 S. Mashta Dr. at 2:50 a.m. on Aug. 6, according to the police report. Loud music emanates from the vehicle.
Two passengers, also teen girls, immediately flee from the black sedan down Mashta Drive – as does the driver. However, the driver comes back to the car, the surveillance video shows.
Melissa White, who is president of the Key Biscayne Community Foundation, said friends on Mashta Drive asked her to speak for them at the Aug. 27 Council meeting on the crash.
“It was not the tragedy it could have been if you’ve seen the video. And our hope is that it can be a teachable moment for the young girls,” she said, without providing any details. She declined further comment.
Key Biscayne Police estimated damage to the automated drive gate was $7,000 and damage to the garage was $3,000, according to a police report obtained by the Independent.
“The driver lost control of the vehicle,” according to the report by Officer Dayana Perez, noting the driver was “inattentive.” The police report estimated the damage to the Mercedes at $20,000. The passenger front wheel was off its axle and pushed against the car perpendicular – a testament to the speed and impact, although the airbag didn’t deploy, the report said.
The report noted that alcohol or drug use was not suspected. It’s not known if a sobriety test was given or not.
An 85-day ticket mystery and obstacles over public records
The circumstances of how the citation went missing for 85 days remained unknown Wednesday.
“I can’t explain it. We don’t have it,” said Pamela Bernhardt, the records supervisor for the Miami-Dade Clerk of Courts.
Key Biscayne Police Chief Frank Sousa blamed the clerks’ office, insisting the document was entered into an electronic records system on Aug. 26, some 20 days after it was written on the day of the crash. Then, he said it was later mailed with other citations. But Bernhardt said Tuesday she had double-checked with the section that handles citations, finding no Key Biscayne record.
The missing ticket was only discovered when the Independent made records requests. It’s possible that without the inquiry, the ticket would have remained unfiled.
“I cannot answer what happened on their end. However, we did send an officer to the Clerk of Court this morning, and the citation was entered by them,” Sousa said.
The police chief initially raised a series of obstacles to releasing the information.
He claimed that a records request needed to be notarized when Florida law states otherwise. He said records are not available on Fridays, because of departmental staffing issues.
When the report was released, Sousa redacted almost all information about the passengers of the Mercedes, also both teen girls. When the Independent raised questions about the deletions, he issued a revised report. A request to review body camera footage remains pending. Sousa said the department will need several days to do more redactions, but it’s not clear what is being redacted.
The owner of the home, according to property records, is Patrick Emans as the trustee of the 500 South Mashta Land Trust. A phone message for Emans, a partner at the law firm of Holland & Knight in Miami, was not returned.
The police report lists Mariano Suarez Battan, a California tech entrepreneur, as the occupant of the home at the time of the crash. Battan, as well, did not return phone calls.
The parents of the teen driver also could not be reached for comment.
The teen couldn’t have picked a more exclusive home to crash her car into the security gate.
Alan Viergutz, president of a Venezuelan-based oil company, sold the 11,000-square-foot home for $17.4 million in May 2021, according to The Real Deal.
This story was originally published in the Key Biscayne Independent, a WLRN News partner.
