TAMPA -- Cameron Herrin, the driver who pled guilty to the crash that killed a young mother and her toddler daughter on Bayshore Boulevard in 2018, was sentenced to 24 years in the Florida state prison system... nine years on one count of vehicular homicide and 15 years on the other count to be served consecutively.
The crash killed 24-year-old Jessica Reisinger-Raubenolt and her 21-month-old daughter Lillia Raubenolt.
The judge said that a youthful offender sentence would not be appropriate, and guidelines fall in the range of 18 to 30 years. He said the harm caused kept him from going to the low end of the guidelines, but arguments for departure did suggest against going to the maximum, including Herrin's age and lack of criminal history.
Speakers in favor of Herrin at his day long sentencing hearing included his mother, an insurance executive, and a former Hillsborough circuit judge. Greg Holder, who served on the bench until his retirement in 2020, also used to live next door to Herrin and his family. He described the teenage Herrin as "a very caring young man" and recalled how the boy and his brother Tristan persuaded him to use traps to catch raccoons rather than shoot them with BB guns.
The driver police say was racing Herrin, John Barrineau, pled guilty last year and has been sentenced to six years in prison. Herrin's attorney John Fitzgibbons argued that his client shouldn't receive a longer sentence. Prosecutors say Fitzgibbons never offered a plea deal with prison time. Fitzgibbons responded that his client would accept six years.
Fitzgibbons haltingly read a statement from Herrin through fogged-up glasses. "I would like to apologize... the amount of remorse, regret and sorrow that I feel is unfathomable... I know that nothing can be done to turn back the clock... I am so sorry for what I did and what I caused... I always pray for the Reisinger and Raubenolt families. My life will be dedicated to repaying the cost of the lives I took."
Herrin's mother Cheryl described her efforts to sell the family's house and battle their insurance company to pay damages to the Reisinger and Raubenolt families.
The judge also heard from a psychiatrist and former forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Michael Maher, who "In his disconnection from reality, he imagined that he could trade his life for (the mother and daughter)," (psychiatrist) said.
"It is my opinion that if he is given the opportunity (without jail) he has the capacity to (deliver the message about driving) in a way that saves lives," Dr. Maher said.
After lunch, prosecutors placed a Tampa Police Department traffic officer on the stand who recalled details from the crash investigation. Following them, Pam Reisinger, the mother of Jessica Reisinger-Raubenolt and the grandmother of Lillia Raubenolt. The Ohio preschool teacher responded to defense testimony: "I believe in forgiveness but there is a price to pay... I don't see a lesson learned without just punishment."
The victims' husband and father also rejected defense efforts to paint Herrin as a remorseful teenager whose adolescent brain didn't allow him to stop and think. "I don't have any tears left for you," Raubenolt said. "Any person of good heart and faith would not have initiated your reckless actions that day." He said the crash had caused him and the surviving families "everlasting pain and depths of sorrow." He recalled visiting the room that contained his daughter Lillia's keepsakes, and said he couldn't go in without thinking of "the entitled monster who killed them."
Raubenolt's sister, Michele Clark, described Herrin as "using his attorney to stretch the law to its thinnest point." She said that her sister-in-law and niece mattered as much as those living, and that a sentence less than the maximum of 30 years would send a message that the lives of pedestrians on Bayshore didn't matter. "We are not asking for a death sentence, we are not asking for revenge, we are asking for justice."
After the sentencing, members of the Reisinger and Raubenolt families called on Mayor Castor and the city of Tampa to put an end to what they called a "street racing culture."