Driver's Text Minutes Before Fatal Crash: 'Driving Drunk'

Mila Dago is accused of causing crash that killed friend
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted May 2, 2015 6:32 AM CDT
Driver's Text Minutes Before Fatal Crash: 'Driving Drunk'
   (Shutterstock)

Mila Dago, then 22, was enmeshed in a bitter breakup on Aug. 14, 2013. As she and her friends were out drinking in Miami, she sent her boyfriend more than 60 angry text messages, police say. The last of those messages read "Driving drunk woo," "I'll be dead thanks to you," and "Lata"—and they were sent three minutes before Dago allegedly ran a red light and T-boned a truck with the rented Smart Car she was driving at 4:45am, killing her 22-year-old passenger and friend, Irina Reinoso, prosecutors say. Dago and the driver of the truck survived. The case against Dago is ongoing, and prosecutors just entered the text messages and into evidence last week, the Miami Herald reports. Dago had earlier texted the boyfriend, "I'm done. You ruined me. You'll be the death of me," to which he texted back, just 20 minutes before the crash, "What you talking about. You’re psycho. Stop weirdo."

Dago, who was found to have a blood alcohol level of .178 almost two hours after the crash, has pleaded not guilty to DUI manslaughter, vehicular homicide, and other charges; no trial date has yet been set. "This was highly preventable," says a lawyer for Reinoso's family, according to CBS Miami. "Ms. Dago clearly should not have been drinking and aside from the drinking there was an altered emotional state." He is suing her as well as Car2GO, from which she rented the Smart Car: "What we have is a business where people can go late at night, at 3 in the morning, after going to bars and clubs and rent a vehicle from an operation that is unmanned, on a whim." Car2GO has, in the past, highlighted the fact that Reinoso was not wearing a seatbelt. (Hours before another fatal crash, the driver tweeted, "2 drunk 2 care.")

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