Daughter of man killed in 2021 Wellington crash wanted more prison time for teen driver

WEST PALM BEACH — Robert Ehrenberg's daughter urged the judge another time: Reject the plea deal for the girl responsible for his death.

Keshyra Hodge was 17 when she drove her BMW more than 100 mph into Ehrenberg's Kia Soul on July 6, 2021. The collision flipped the Kia as it pulled into a Wellington neighborhood, killing the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office employee and his 58-year-old passenger, Gloria Ludwig.

The teen spent two days in jail for vehicular homicide before bonding out to continue taking classes at Seminole Ridge High School. Ehrenberg's children and Ludwig's sisters watched from afar as she attended prom and walked across the stage at graduation. Ehrenberg’s daughter Lee-Ann Piper said they’d hated that, but they endured it knowing she would serve her time in prison.

But this, Piper told the judge — the five-year prison sentence the prosecutor offered in exchange for Hodge's guilty plea — wasn't what they had in mind.

"Two and a half years for my dad's life?" she asked. "Two and a half years for Gloria's?"

Circuit Judge Caroline Shepherd mulled over whether to accept the plea deal for more than an hour Tuesday, torn between the competing wishes of the victims' families. Ludwig's sisters said they wanted to resolve the case and move on. Ehrenberg's children urged the judge to reject the deal in favor of a lengthier prison sentence, one they said would account for the loss of their father.

No amount of time ever would, Shepherd said. She accepted the deal and warned the teen that if she breaks the law between now and Sept. 8, when she is scheduled to turn herself in, the five-year penalty will double.

"If you don't turn your life around, your future is bleak," Shepherd told Hodge, now 19. "I understand that this may have been one bad day for you, but it was one horrific day for a lot of people who did nothing wrong."

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Hodge told investigators that she was driving at the speed limit when she collided with Ehrenberg's car on Forest Hill Boulevard. According to her arrest report, surveillance-camera footage captured Hodge and another teenage driver racing one another prior to the crash.

Hodge's car reached 107 mph in a 40-mph zone before she slammed on the brakes, plowing into Ehrenberg's car at 101 mph one second later. All the occupants wore seatbelts. Ehrenberg and Ludwig were pronounced dead at the scene, and Hodge and her teenage passenger were treated for minor injuries.

Deputies charged Hodge and Antajah Richards, the 16-year-old driver believed to have raced Hodge as they drove home from the Mall at Wellington Green, with vehicular homicide. Richards pleaded guilty to two counts of reckless driving in November in exchange for a one-year prison sentence, with credit for the four months she spent in jail.

Assistant State Attorney Amy Berkman read a letter written by Ludwig's older sister Glenda Obholz, who watched Tuesday's proceeding over Zoom. Hodge had plowed into the passenger side of the car, where Ludwig sat. She "didn't stand a chance of surviving," Obholz said.

Piper and her brother read their own statements, a mix of devastation and anger. Their father, a civilian employee at the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office central records department, would have turned 63 two weeks after the crash.

"The thought that my dad won't be here to hear the change in my son's voice, or witness my daughter graduate elementary school, is heartbreaking," Piper said.

She called the pain immeasurable and the plea deal "incomprehensible." Justice demands a punishment that fits the gravity of the crime, she said.

A family fractured: Two children want justice for their mother. Their brother wants freedom for her killer.

Judge sentences teen to prison now, community service later

Hodge's defense attorney, Scott Skier, said later that he felt the resolution was fair. Had they fought the charges at trial — arguing over whether the teens were racing at the time of the impact, and whether Ehrenberg had enough time to stop but chose to cross the road anyway — Hodge risked spending 18 years in prison.

"That's too big of a swing," Skier said. "You have to accept those five years and forgo your opportunity to argue the facts."

He commended Berkman for resolving the case in a way he said factored in the totality of the circumstances — the two lives lost, Hodge's youth, her lack of criminal history. Skier and the prosecutor advocated for the fairness of the deal during a lengthy sidebar discussion with the judge, who nodded periodically.

Shepherd rejected the plea deal of an 18-year-old boy last year who accidentally shot and killed another teenager while playing with a gun. She called the proposed 10-year sentence "not sufficient" for the death of Esteban Gonzalez, agreeing months later to a revised 11-year deal.

She expressed similar reservations Tuesday but ultimately agreed with the attorneys.

Hodge will remain on probation for five years after she is released from prison, the beginning of which will be spent under house arrest. She must perform 30 speaking engagements — six a year — at schools to warn about the dangers of speeding and reckless driving, too.

"It's my hope that I don't see you again," Shepherd told the teen. "That you do something positive with your life, maybe save someone else's life in the process. That maybe something good can come of it."

Hodge nodded. Ehrenberg's daughter left without another word.

Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Two years after Wellington crash that killed 2, teen driver sentenced