Hillsborough detention deputy arrested on vehicular homicide charge

TAMPA — A Hillsborough detention deputy involved in a crash on N Dale Mabry Highway that killed a Lutz woman last year has been arrested on charges of vehicular homicide and reckless driving.

Daniel Lawrence Hernandez, 36, of Tampa was arrested Monday morning and released from the Hillsborough County jail less than an hour later after posting $9,500 bail, records show.

Hernandez was driving at speeds as high as 109 mph in a 45 mph zone before his Ford Mustang crashed into a Nissan Murano on Aug. 20, according to a Florida Highway Patrol arrest report. The Nissan driver, 65-year-old Krista Richter, was killed and her husband, Peter Richter, was seriously injured.

A witness told investigators Hernandez appeared to be challenging another vehicle that had accelerated from an intersection.

“This rapid acceleration and high speeds were done while commencing lane changes that would prohibit Krista Richter from being able to spot the Ford Mustang approaching at double the speed limit,” the report says. “The combination of these actions constituted a wanton disregard for the safety of the motoring public and ultimately resulted in the traffic crash.”

Hernandez’s attorney, Anthony Rickman, said Hernandez turned himself in after he was notified there was an active warrant for his arrest.

“The charges against Daniel Hernandez arise from an automobile accident in 2021 in which it was determined that Mr. Hernandez was not at fault,” Rickman said in a statement. “Mr. Hernandez maintains his innocence and looks forward to defending the charges in court.”

Rickman said Hernandez “has served his community as a Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office deputy and previously defended our country as a member of the United States Armed Forces.”

Hernandez has been removed from his post and placed on unpaid administrative leave while an internal investigation is underway, Sheriff Chad Chronister said in a statement.

“As a Sheriff’s Office, we are constantly reminding the public that speeding can have severe, long-lasting consequences for both the driver and others involved,” Chronister said. “The actions of Daniel Hernandez on the night of the crash are inexcusable and not a reflection of the many men and women who work to take aggressive drivers off of our roadways every day.”

Peter Richter said Monday that he was grateful to his attorney for obtaining crucial evidence in the case and to the Highway Patrol investigators.

“I’m still recuperating from my injuries but take comfort in the arrest and the pending charges,” Richter said. “I believe this will bring some peace to my late wife’s soul.”

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The crash happened at 7:48 p.m., 15 minutes before sunset that day.

In a previous interview with the Tampa Bay Times, Peter Richter recalled having a clear, well-lit view down Dale Mabry. He said the last memory he has of his wife is checking to make sure it was safe to turn.

Married 35 years, the Lutz couple had just finished a Friday night dinner at Burger Culture when Krista Richter pulled their Nissan Murano into a turn lane on N Dale Mabry Highway. She didn’t like making U-turns, her husband said, so she was going to turn east onto Sligh Avenue to turn around, then head north toward home.

They scanned the northbound lanes of Dale Mabry for oncoming traffic before trying to cross, recalled Peter Richter, who was in the front passenger seat.

“I looked and everything looked good,” Richter said. “She looked and everything looked good.”

Krista Richter accelerated to cross. Suddenly, Peter Richter heard a crack and saw a flash of blue colliding with their white SUV. He caught a glance of his wife as they began to roll — one of her legs looked like “a sock in a clothes dryer,” he said. The next thing he remembers is first responders pulling him from the wreckage.

A Ford Mustang heading north on Dale Mabry in the right lane had plowed into the passenger side of the Richters’ Nissan, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. A responding trooper concluded Krista Richter had violated the Mustang driver’s right of way and wrote her a citation.

Nine days after the Aug. 20 crash, she died in the hospital.

Trooper J.O. Ruiz, who responded to the crash, put “45 mph” in the report for the Mustang’s estimated speed at the time of the crash.

But Peter Richter’s attorney, Ralph Fisher, thought that couldn’t be correct if his client’s account about the road being clear of oncoming traffic was accurate. Fisher told the Times last year that he suspected the Mustang was speeding and recommended to Richter that they pay a forensic examiner to pull data from the car’s event data recorder.

According to the data, the Mustang was traveling at 83 mph five seconds before the crash and the accelerator was 100 percent engaged. The Mustang accelerated to 109.2, then the brakes were engaged just before the crash. The car was traveling at 83 mph at impact, the data report shows.

Fisher turned the data over to the Highway Patrol on Sept. 18. By then, the agency had launched a traffic homicide investigation because Krista Richter had died.

An investigator obtained surveillance video from a nearby Enterprise Rent-A-Car that “appeared to validate the excessive speed” reflected in the car’s data, according to a search warrant affidavit filed by a Highway Patrol investigator on Sept. 22 seeking permission to examine the Richters’ Nissan for evidence.

“Using reference points from the video, a simple time and distance calculation indicates the Mustang was averaging over 90 mph just prior to the traffic crash,” Sgt. Leif Cardwell wrote in the affidavit. “Additionally, the video indicates it was moving much faster than surrounding traffic.”

The Mustang driver “should have known the speeds at which he was operating the vehicle would be likely to cause a crash resulting in injury or death, based upon the time and location in which he was driving,” Cardwell wrote.

Hernandez started with the Sheriff’s Office as a detention deputy in 2016.