Family of Officer Killed in Crash Awarded $8M

A car that ran a stop sign in Pembroke Pines ended a North Miami officer's life in 2004. Now his widow and daughters have been awarded compensation.

Four years after a highly decorated North Miami Beach police officer was killed in a car crash, his wife and three daughters were awarded $8.07 million by a Broward County jury.

Yvette Lorenzo and her three daughters were not in the car with the father, Officer Orestes ''Oreo'' Lorenzo, when he swerved out of the way while driving west on Pines Boulevard in Pembroke Pines to avoid hitting a red Honda Civic that ran a stop sign. Lorenzo's car went straight into a drainage curb, tripping his vehicle and smashing it against a large royal palm tree. The father of three was ejected from the car. He died in the hospital seven days later.

It was July 2, 2004, when Natasha Russo, 18, drove her father's new car past the stop sign on 180th Avenue. The jury awarded the compensatory damages -- against the Florida Department of Transportation and William and Natasha Russo -- at midnight Saturday. The trial was closed to the public because of the flooding that closed the courthouse last week.

The lawsuit maintained that the 18-year-old's negligence led to Lorenzo's death. It also alleged that the FDOT was responsible as well for violating its own rules by allowing a drainage curb and large royal palm trees to be placed on a road where the speed limit was 50 mph.

According to court documents, the jury estimated the damage to Lorenzo's family that was caused by the crash at $11.5 million. But after distributing the blame placed on Russo, the FDOT, and Lorenzo himself, the family of four was given 70 percent of the total monetary damages.
The jury concluded that Lorenzo was 30 percent responsible for his own death. More than half of the blame, 55 percent, was placed on the young Russo.

The jury decided the FDOT was the least responsible of the three, and 15 percent of the crash was be attributed to the department.

Miami Herald