Largo woman sentenced to 10 years in prison for fatal Pinellas Park hit-and-run

A Largo woman who fatally struck a bicyclist while driving drunk last July will spend 10 years in prison, a Pinellas County judge ruled earlier this month.

Anaya Elisia Millan, 26, pleaded guilty June 13 to DUI manslaughter and leaving the scene of a fatal crash, ending a winding case that led a Pinellas County sheriff’s deputy to resign.

Driving home from a club with two friends after 3 a.m. on July 29, 2023, Millan hit William Christopher Rothey, 37, who had been cycling along the shoulder on the 11700 block of 66th Street in Pinellas Park. After the crash, she drove off without stopping or checking on Rothey, police said.

Rothey died at a local hospital soon after. He left behind a 5-year-old son.

Junior Lewis, a deputy with the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, stopped Millan for a broken taillight soon after the crash. He noticed signs of impairment and that her windshield was caved in and her front bumper was dented, according to Sheriff Bob Gualtieri.

Despite this, Lewis told her to switch seats with the car’s front passenger and allowed her to leave.

Millan abandoned her Hyundai Sonata in the parking lot of a Publix at 7333 Park Blvd., police said. Authorities released her name later that day, seeking information on whereabouts. She turned herself in the following evening.

Police said Nicole Ventura, 25, drove the car after the traffic stop and helped Millan dispose of it. She was charged with acting as an accessory after the fact and tampering with evidence. Ventura pleaded not guilty to the charges and still awaits trial.

Lewis, the deputy, resigned on Dec. 14 as an internal investigation was wrapping up. In a memo summarizing its findings, Gualtieri wrote that had he not resigned, he would have been fired.

Because Lewis did not conduct an interview to determine whether Millan was intoxicated, authorities said at the time, she could not be charged with DUI manslaughter.

That was not the case, however.

Though she was initially charged with fleeing the scene of a fatal crash, prosecutors brought the additional DUI manslaughter charge on May 28.

Millan wrote in a six-page letter to the court the following day that the state lacked evidence to make the charge, citing the traffic stop that ended without a sobriety test. She asked the court to grant her leniency, waive the minimum sentence and allow her to return to her son, whom she had not been with for nearly a year.

“I am not perfect and I grow and learn more and more every day,” Millan wrote. “The only thing I am humbly asking for is a chance.”

Brian Pingor, Millan’s attorney, declined to comment on the case.

Assistant State Attorney Carl Bauer credited the Pinellas Park Police Department with conducting the necessary work to bring the charge.

After the crash, officers identified the three bars Millan visited, according to Bauer. Surveillance footage from two of the bars showed the drinks Millan consumed, while one of the passengers in her car told police how many drinks she’d had at the third establishment.

Because the group drank shots of Patrón tequila, which Bauer said had a relatively standard alcohol content, police were able to determine roughly how much alcohol was in Millan’s system at the time of the crash.

With this evidence, forensic toxicologists put together an estimate for her blood alcohol content at the time of the crash, Bauer said.

According to the forensic report, Millan’s BAC was likely between 0.132 and 0.219 — above the limit at which Florida law presumes a driver is impaired — even assuming her last drink was not yet fully absorbed into her bloodstream.

“We had to put a whole timeline together using the GPS data from her phone,” Bauer said. “We wanted to know that we could prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Richard Pollenz, a professor of molecular biosciences at the University of South Florida, wrote in an email that estimates of BAC are possible even without blood or breath testing, though these estimates have a higher margin of error than direct measurement.

A mathematical formula allows toxicologists to estimate someone’s BAC based on the number of drinks they consumed, body-mass index, sex and the time and duration of drinking relative to the time of the incident, Pollenz wrote.

Millan’s sentence under the deal falls below the sentencing recommendation of 13 years, Bauer said.

“We were happy with the outcome because the families didn’t have to go through the expense of a trial,” he said. “The 10-year offer was to avoid having to go to trial so the family could have some closure.”