Lawyer claims fatal crash investigation framed Jose Fernandez
Miami Marlins ace pitcher Jose Fernandez was framed as part of a shoddy investigation into the crash that claimed his life and the lives of two others in 2016, his estate’s lawyer implied in court papers filed Monday.
Attorney Ralph Fernandez, no relation to the late All Star, accused lead investigators at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission of jumping to the conclusion that Fernandez, 24, was responsible for the crash, and then altering or ignoring evidence that did not support that finding.
“The law enforcement investigation,” he wrote, “was fraught with false statements of fact … and included references to evidence that never existed.”
The 167-page document filed in the civil case against the estate contains graphic descriptions of the conditions of the bodies of Fernandez and crash victims Emilio Macias, 27, and Eduardo Rivero, 25.
The law enforcement investigation concluded that Fernandez was in control of his boat, Kaught Looking, when it crashed about 3 a.m. Sept. 25, 2016, on the north jetty of Government Cut inlet near Miami Beach.
Officials also said Fernandez was high on cocaine at the time, had a blood alcohol content of .14 and was operating his Sea Vee 32-foot center console boat “while impaired,” in a “reckless manner, at an extremely high rate of speed” at night where there are jetties.
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The attorney outlined a theory that someone slipped cocaine into one of the pitcher’s drinks in the hours leading up to the crash to make it easy to steal $15,000 that Fernandez was carrying in his backpack to tip Marlins Park employees for their help during the 2016 season.
The backpack was recovered, the attorney wrote. The cash was not.
Law enforcement never took the idea of “involuntary ingestion” of cocaine seriously, even though there were no signs of drug paraphernalia in the bag or on the boat, the attorney wrote.
Chris Royer of Krupnick Campbell law firm in Fort Lauderdale represents the estates of Macias and Rivero and brought the wrongful death and negligence lawsuit in March 2017.
“Despite what Ralph Fernandez has said in his most recent court filing, he has to admit there is no evidence whatsoever to support his contention that either Emilio Macias or Eduardo Rivero was operating the vessel at the time of the accident,” Royer told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “All of the evidence to date is that Jose Fernandez was operating the vessel. In order to protect all of the families involved in this matter, including that of Jose Fernandez, we are not going to comment on any specific aspect of the discovery taken to date and will continue to abide by the court’s confidentiality rulings.”