“MAN ACCUSED IN DEADLY DUI CRASH DEPORTED”
Video transcript
Only on 6, 3 families in Miami-Dade were robbed of justice after the man accused of killing their loved ones got deported before his trial. Police say that the man was drunk when he crashed and killed 3 people on West Flagler. But now that man is in Honduras and won't face any punishment. NBC 6 reporter Christian Colon joins us with the story you'll see only on 6. Video shows the moment 3 young lives were cut short. Paola Sabillon, her boyfriend Jason Mesa and his cousin Giselle Reyes were killed when police say their driver Erwin Zuniga drove drunk and plowed into a Valero sign. We just want justice. And after we have justice then maybe we can grieve. That's all we want. But that justice is on a temporary, potentially permanent pause because Zuniga was deported to Honduras last week. According to what his attorney said, his probation officer called him in to change his battery, his anklet battery. He showed up. Immigration was already there. He got detained. His officer removed the anklet and let him go. Good morning. Mr. You are arrested for... Against the family's wishes, Zuniga was placed on house arrest 2 years ago. But this July record showed he violated the rules of his release. To wit, he was arrested by Homeland Security officers on new charges of immigration status. He gets deported. He's living. He's eating. He's sleeping. He's seeing his family. And my sister stopped growing at 19 years old. Immigration Customs Enforcement, or ICE, tells NBC6 Zuniga was an unlawfully present Honduran national removed by an order signed by an immigration judge from the Executive Office of Immigration Review. The victims' families feel betrayed by the government since Zuniga hasn't gone to trial for killing three of their loved ones. It's like they're mocking, making jokes in our faces, Jason's mother tells us. They failed my mom. They failed the other two families. My sister was a human being, not an animal. State Attorney Catherine Fernandez Rundle tells NBC6 the family was robbed of justice and cheated by governmental failure, adding this could have been avoided if those over seen house arrests had simply notified them or the court of their intention to release him. And state attorneys say they are trying to work with the federal government to try and bring the defendant back. We reached out to the Miami Dade Corrections and Zuniga's public defender, but they did not want to comment. In Miami, Christian Colon, NBC6 News.
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