Tampa jury weighs if man caused 2018 fatal wrong-way crash on Selmon Expressway

TAMPA — One early morning five years ago, the driver of a Ford F-350 pickup sped through the streets of South Tampa. The truck, its headlights off, rolled over a sidewalk, blew through red lights, weaved over lane markers and zipped north through bustling SoHo. It turned the wrong way down one-way Cleveland Street, moving as fast as 65 mph before ascending an exit ramp, heading east in the westbound lanes of the Lee Roy Selmon Expressway.

It was there that the massive truck plowed head-on into another, smaller pickup. The other driver, Bamnet Narongchai, was killed instantly.

On Friday, a jury went to work to decide if Stephen Paleveda was the person responsible for his death. The panel of six women deliberated for three hours before telling Hillsborough Circuit Judge Barbara Twine Thomas they were divided on whether to convict. The judge allowed the jury to break for the weekend, with deliberations to resume Monday.

Paleveda, 32, has been jailed since the Oct. 21, 2018, crash on charges of DUI manslaughter, vehicular homicide, leaving the scene of an accident and resisting arrest.

Hillsborough prosecutors argued that he matched the description of a heavyset man whom another motorist saw standing near the F-350 moments after the crash. Tampa police found him shortly after on the streets of Hyde Park, drunk, belligerent and bleeding from wounds to his face and head.

A medical sample of Paleveda’s blood taken about 90 minutes after the crash showed an alcohol level at 0.27, more than three times the 0.08 limit at which state law presumes impairment.

“There can be no doubt that the one man on scene was the one man driving,” Assistant State Attorney Christine Brown told the jury.

Attorney Rocky Brancato, who is running for Hillsborough public defender, led Paleveda’s defense team. They argued that police botched the investigation and concluded too quickly that he was the person responsible.

Yes, he was drunk, they said. Yes, it was his truck. But no, they said, he was not the driver.

They asserted that Paleveda was merely a passenger in his own truck. They suggested that his girlfriend was his designated driver.

“It’s a tragedy that Mr. Narongchai passed, but we will not stand for correcting one tragedy by creating another,” defense attorney Jacob Martin said in closing arguments.

The trial, which spanned four days, included dueling testimony from medical experts who offered differing interpretations of wounds and marks on Paleveda’s body and complex discussions of crash dynamics and seat belt mechanics.

The words of police and lay witnesses told a tale of the events that preceded the crash.

Paleveda and his girlfriend attended a wedding hours earlier. It was there, prosecutors said, that he began drinking. Later, they returned home to Seffner, where the couple got in an argument. Paleveda then left in his truck, according to the state.

He went to South Tampa and spent time in a bar called Elmer’s Sports Cafe. A police detective testified that surveillance video he observed from the bar showed Paleveda arriving and leaving alone. But jurors never saw the video because police were unable to download it into evidence.

A little after midnight, a private security officer on patrol noticed the F-350 being driven erratically along South MacDill Avenue. The officer, Antonis Zaloumis, decided to follow the truck. With a dashboard camera recording, he called 911 and narrated the driver’s movements.

“We’re at Howard and West Platt,” he said in a recording of the call. “He almost took out pedestrians northbound on Howard. … He’s going the wrong way. … I’m right behind him, we’re going the wrong way on Cleveland.”

Zaloumis continued to follow the truck, a fact the defense exploited. Brancato called it “a high-speed chase.”

“It’s a chase that a police officer would have been prohibited from engaging in because it’s too dangerous,” he said.

The officer stopped following shortly before the truck entered the expressway.

Fire consumed both trucks in the minutes after the collision. Two driver’s side doors on the F-350 stood propped open. The defense argued that the fire prevented Paleveda from exiting the through the passenger side.

Police found Paleveda by the roadside at Hyde Park Avenue and Azeele Street. He was trying to hitchhike, prosecutors said. Before he was arrested, he removed his shirt. A photograph of his torso showed a faint, shaded line running diagonally from his left shoulder across his chest. Another photograph, taken at the hospital, showed a darker red mark along the left side of his neck. The state suggested the marks were from a driver’s side seat belt.

Another photograph, though, showed another mark, redder, closer to his belly and angled toward his left shoulder. The defense suggested it was from a passenger seat belt. They also argued that injuries to the right side of his head seemed consistent with his having been seated in the passenger seat.

Police spoke with Paleveda’s girlfriend five days after the crash when she gave a statement at the State Attorney’s Office. A detective testified that she had no visible injuries. She denied driving the truck, and police believed she had no involvement in the crash.

Paleveda faces up to 60 years in prison if convicted.