Florida Teen Charged With DUI After Allegedly Running Over and Dragging Toddler Through Gated Neighborhood
A two-year-old boy riding his bike in a cul-de-sac in his gated Florida neighborhood died tragically when a silver Toyota Tacoma driven by a person who was allegedly drunk hit and pulled the child behind it.
A police report says that Krysten and Daniel Lepping “began yelling” at the driver, Joshua Aidan Montero, 19, to “slow down.” In the end, the truck hit the child, pulling him a few feet and leaving “blood marks” behind him around 7:15 p.m. on Monday, September 2.
The toddler, whose name was written in the arrest affidavit as Asher Lepping, was given CPR by a neighbor in Oak Bend, but the child was later declared dead at the hospital.
His web record with the Lake County Circuit Court shows that Montero is charged with felony DUI manslaughter. Officer Courtney Sullivan told PEOPLE that what happened on Labor Day was “horrific” and “careless and preventable.”
“Our agency is very saddened by the death of this sweet little boy,” she said. “We hope that justice is done for the boy’s family.” Our thoughts and prayers are with his family during this very sad time.
In the probable cause affidavit, it says that Asher’s mother told Tavares police officer C. Bannick at the scene of the accident that “she believed the vehicle’s front tire completely ran over” her son.
There was a strong smell of alcohol coming from Montero, who was sitting on the sidewalk without a shirt on and wearing only swimming trunks. Bannick said this in a statement.
At the time of the accident, the officer said, the teen “admitted to speeding at the time he hit the child.”
Bannick says that the teen said he felt like he was “spinning” while he was in the police car. As the officer drove Montero to jail, he reportedly told him that he was drunk but not “drunk drunk” or “too drunk” to drive, as he put it.
The affidavit said that he recorded a.062 and a.057 on two breath tests, which were both “over the legal limit” because Joshua is not old enough to drink alcohol.
The affidavit says that when detectives asked Montero if he had been drinking, he first said that he had had 15 cans of Michelob Ultra, but then changed his story to say that he had only had three or four cans over the course of four hours at the beach earlier that day.
In the statement, Bannick also said that the teen admitted to using cocaine for fun, telling the officer that he had taken two grams in the last two days but none that day “because his girlfriend wouldn’t let him.” In the affidavit, the police officer said that Joshua was constantly itching, wiping his nose, and sniffing during the interview, which is “normal for someone who is high on cocaine.”
The teen, who is being held without bond by the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, turned down a public defender, and his online court record shows that he has not yet been given a lawyer. His hearing is set for September 30 at 8:30 a.m.
Annie Brown wrote on a GoFundMe page set up by a family neighbor that a “precious little boy” had been taken from his parents and sister “all because a driver chose to show no respect for our quiet gated community and the precious children that live here.”
