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Meeting yields no resolution in South Tampa hit-and-run case

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By JOSH POLTILOVE | The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 1, 2009

TAMPA - A June 19 meeting between a prosecutor and attorneys looking out for teenager Jordan Valdez didn't have a resolution, an internal document from the Tampa Police Department states.

Assistant State Attorney Mike Sinacore asked Tampa police to research past crashes Valdez had been involved in where she was at fault, and police found one "very minor crash that we do not believe there was a police report written for," the June 23 internal document from the police department states.

The recent meeting involves the February death of Melissa Sjostrom, who was struck by a vehicle while walking across South Hyde Park Avenue near Azeele Street.

Valdez gave a statement to the State Attorney's Office, and an offer was made, documents show.

Assistant State Attorney Pam Bondi and police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said today they could not comment on a pending investigation.

Valdez's attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.

The case involves the February death of Melissa Sjostrom, who was struck by a vehicle while walking across South Hyde Park Avenue near Azeele Street.

Searching for evidence to implicate Valdez, Tampa police searched her home in May and seized three computers and a cordless phone.

They said there might be communications on the computers' hard drives they could use in building a case against Valdez.

According to a search warrant affidavit that became public in May, investigators had interviewed two witnesses to the Feb. 8 hit-and-run, including one who chased a Nissan sport utility vehicle to Davis Islands but lost it. Police later that night found a maroon Nissan Murano parked in front of the Valdez home. Its front end had been damaged and paint was chipped, police said.

Police said paint chips found at the scene matched the vehicle paint.

The next morning, Robert Valdez, the teen's father, called police to say his daughter, age 16 at the time, had been involved in a hit-and-run on the Davis Islands bridge and that he wanted to talk to an investigator.

The search warrant states that about 8:30 p.m. Feb. 8, Sjostrom was walking across South Hyde Park Avenue near Azeele Street when she was struck by an SUV.

Vincent Bernabei was right behind the Murano, the affidavit states. He told investigators he saw the Murano hit the victim and leave. "The maroon SUV fled the scene at a very high rate of speed southbound on Hyde Park towards Davis Islands," the affidavit states.

Bernabei said he "tried to catch the red SUV, but lost the SUV as it entered Davis Islands."

Sjostrom, 33, a homeless woman, was taken to Tampa General Hospital and died that night during surgery.

The teen was issued a citation for civil careless-driving. The citation was dismissed after the detective who issued it did not appear in court to testify.

Tampa lawyer John Fitzgibbons, a former federal prosecutor, said that if negotiations had been taking place, a meeting between the state attorney's office and the defense would have allowed prosecutors to evaluate Valdez's truthfulness and hear her side of the story. Prosecutors would want to hear whether she was driver and whether she left the crash scene.

After hearing that, Fitzgibbons said, it wouldn't be unusual for the state to offer some sort of plea deal to the defense.

"This is a very, very compelling if not sad case, because if the driver of the vehicle had stopped, all indications are it was an accident and no charges would have ever been filed because many accidents don't involve any criminal acts," Fitzgibbons said. "So trying to determine what is a proper punishment for that is very difficult.

"On the one hand, you may have a young person with a whole lifetime in front of them who may have panicked; it was not a malicious type of situation but was just a panic situation. But on the other hand, they did something the law prohibits. So trying to find a balance is my guess is to what is going on."

Reporter Josh Poltilove can be reached at (813) 259-7691.

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