A FlaglerLive Special Report
By Pierre Tristam
How could the wrong person have been arrested for the triple-fatality hit-and-run crash that killed Flagler County Deputy Administrator Jorge Salinas, his wife Nancy and motorcyclist Joaquin Deno on I-4 last October?
The false arrest of 23-year-old Lindsey Brooke Isaacs of Palm Coast is not just a case of mistaken identity resulting from a concurrence of improbable events. It is also a case of sloppy and incomplete police work, if not knowingly incomplete work.
The damage to Isaacs’s vehicle was not consistent with the magnitude of the crash in question, which should have been the first red flag for investigators. More crucially, based on 911 calls and statements the night of the crash, evidence had been recorded that would have helped exculpate Isaacs and more certainly led to the charges filed only late Friday against Alisa Lee Montalvo, 47, of Deltona.
Montalvo in her Durango was a family friend of the bikers and was traveling east with them. She was never mentioned in the initial arrest investigation, nor were references to members of the group of bikers whose eyewitness accounts would later help redirect the charges.
Instead, and possibly because FHP was trying to get out from under a civil lawsuit Isaacs’s attorney, Marc Dwyer, had filed to have her Dodge Durango released from impound months after the crash, FHP appears to have rushed the arrest of Isaacs with a woefully incomplete investigation and false conclusions based on unsupported assumptions and lack of verifiable, available exculpatory evidence.
The night of the crash, FHP had an I-4 eyewitness account by Justin Lopesilvero of a “black” Dodge Durango causing the crash. FHP relied heavily on that account to substantiate its arrest of Isaacs.
But there was a different I-4 eyewitness account by James Imundo, who was also traveling east. Imundo told Volusia County’s 911 dispatch center that a “maroon” Dodge Durango driving like a “mad person” and as if in “road rage” had caused the crash.
Imundo had a detail that Lopesilvero did not have: the first three numbers of the maroon Durango’s license plate: “458.”
Montalvo’s Durango license plate is 4589XQ.
Isaacs’s Durango license plate is RJVN10, none of whose numbers could reasonably be confused with the numbers Imundo provided.
Imundo’s information never appears in Isaacs’s arrest affidavit, suggesting that FHP either had the evidence and suppressed it, which is not credible–investigators had no reason to go down a potentially criminal route–or, more likely, had not done their due diligence and checked Volusia County’s 911 records before charging Isaacs: Isaacs’s attorney was not aware of the Imundo call to 911 as FHP would have had to make him aware of it if it had it, by the time Isaacs was charged.
Which means that FHP filed the charges not knowing of the second Durango, or assuming that there couldn’t possibly have been two dark-colored Durangos with Florida license plates in the area of the crash, near-simultaneously.
Yet that’s precisely what had happened.
Isaacs was driving home from seeing a friend in Davenport. Her license plate had been read by an LPR two minutes before the crash, west of the scene. When she professed her innocence to FHP and told a trooper “I am a good driver” the night she was first interviewed, FHP did not believe her.
FHP appears to have made a grave mistake that it sought to correct when, in quick succession Friday, the State Attorney’s Office announced that it would not pursue the eight charges FHP filed against Isaacs on April 17 as FHP arrested Montalvo hours later.
Montalvo now faces the same charges Isaacs once did, plus one: tampering or destroying evidence, as investigators learned that Montalvo allegedly took her Durango to a body shop to cover up evidence of the crash.
There is no question that the media, this site included, amplified what now appears to have been a miscarriage of justice against Isaacs by reporting the details of the investigation that led to her arrest, based on what FHP and court documents had been filed at the time. There is equally little doubt that the mistake was FHP’s, not the messengers on whom it routinely relies to publicize its arrests.
Apparently prompted in part by a speed and distance analysis by Isaacs’s attorney that proved she had been well past the site of the crash when it happened, the State Attorney’s Office stopped the mistake when it lived up to its role–as it routinely does in less high-profile cases–as the final arbiter and checks on incomplete, sloppy or indefensible police work. Assistant State Attorney Mark Willard detected alarming discrepancies in FHP’s report.
For Isaacs of course, the damage by then was already done as she sustained a merciless stoning on social media and elsewhere, before her name was cleared.
The following is a more detailed narration of the case based on the original Isaacs investigation and arrest affidavit, the Montalvo investigation and arrest affidavit the State Attorney’s Office released Saturday night, the civil suit Dwyer–Isaacs’s attorney–filed to get her Durango released, the Dwyer motion the first publicly suggested that Isaacs was innocent, and other incidental jail and court documents. (Isaacs is represented by Dwyer of Flagler Beach’s Dwyer and Knight in the civil case and by Daytona Beach attorney Patrick McGeehan in the criminal case.)
The crash took place at 9:53 p.m. on Oct. 4 in the eastbound lanes of I-4 near mile marker 107 and the DeBary/Saxon Boulevard exit.
Salinas, who was Flagler County’s deputy administrator, was driving a black Honda Pilot, with his wife, Nancy, in the passenger seat, as they were returning from a day at Disney. Joaquin Deno, 54, was riding a Suzuki motorcycle and returning from a birthday party for a child in Sanford. Mariliz Barrios-Barrios, 48, was at the wheel of a silver-gray Ford Focus.
Near the time of the crash, Lopesilvero, who provided a witness statement to investigators, was traveling east on I-4 in the center lane. A group of eight to 12 motorcycles passed him in the inside, left travel lane. What he described as a black Dodge Durango “flew by me” in the right lane, he said, estimating its speed at around 100 to 115 mph. The car drove erratically and aggressively.
“The Dodge Durango abruptly changed from the outside (right) travel lane to the inside (left) travel lane directly in front of him, and between a semi-truck, and then into a group of motorcycles,” he told investigators. “The Dodge Durango appeared to almost strike the guardrail of the center median before swerving back into the center travel lane. Within 3 or 4 seconds of swerving back into the center lane the Dodge Durango caused a crash with two other vehicles,” the Ford Focus and the Honda Pilot.
“3-4 seconds after that incident, I went to jump over to the fast lane of traffic, thinking this is just a crazy road rage incident, not knowing the severity of what happened,” Lopesilvero said in his statement. “Lopesilvero stated he was behind a semi-truck and could not see the two other vehicles he later learned were involved, however upon the semi-truck no longer blocking his view, he then observed the other vehicles, and due to such a short time frame, believed the Durango caused both accidents.”
The witness realized that the Durango also struck a motorcycle, and that it never stopped. “I could assume this accident could have been caused when the Durango swerved back across two lanes after striking the motorcycle, or maybe cutting someone else off,” Lopesilvero said. “Again, the Durango cut me off very aggressively, drove into the motorcycle, almost hit the guardrail, and swerved back into the middle lane.”
Barrios-Barrios was seriously injured, Jorge and Nancy Salinas and Deno were killed.
Based on FHP Sgt. Tiffany Jateff’s affidavit, traffic homicide investigators checked license-plate reading cameras near the time of the crash for a black Durango. The LPRs hit on the Durango belonging to Isaacs, with Florida license plate RJVN10, driving west of the crash scene at 9:51 p.m., three minutes before the crash. The same Durango was recorded by an LPR on U.S. 1 north at 10:28 at U.S. 1 and Seminole Woods Boulevard, very close to the Integra Woods apartments.
Troopers Nicholas Schmeider and Jateff went to the Integra Woods apartments and spoke with Isaacs, who told them: “I didn’t hit anything,” and if anything had happened, someone would have had to steal her car.
The troopers noted nothing more than “smudges” or “rub marks” they deemed “consistent with the Durango sideswiping a motorcycle, or it’s [sic] driver while seated in the motorcycle seat.” The “‘marks’ on the left side of the Durango [were] consistent with damage to the right side of the Focus,” according to the investigation, which provided no further details about the alleged damage to the Durango.
The affidavit had stated that “The force of being struck by the Durango caused the Focus to travel off the roadway to the left and strike the guardrail of the median.” The Durango had been processed by the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office before its transfer to an FHP lot in Volusia County.
McGeehan, Isaacs’s attorney in the criminal case, in his motion to quash noted the inconsistencies in FHP’s investigation: “In its arrest warrant affidavit, crash report, and search warrant affidavit, the State alleges a massive high-speed, 100-115 mph, collision wherein the Defendant’s Dodge Durango struck a Ford Focus with such force that the Ford was sent off the roadway, into a guardrail, before reentering the roadway and colliding with a Honda Pilot, killing the occupants of the Pilot. … The State alleges that when they found the Dodge Durango, it had damage to the left side consistent with the collision with the Ford Focus. There is no mention in the investigation of damage to the right side of the Dodge Durango consistent with impacting the Suzuki.”
“The damage allegedly found by the FHP on the Durango is described simply as ‘marks,’ ‘smudges,’ or ‘rub marks,” McGeehan’s motion stated. “Additionally, one would expect to find evidence of such a high-speed, multi-impact, multi-vehicle collision on the Durango’s electronic data recorder, yet there is no mention of such evidence.”
McGeehan’s motion, filed on April 21, refers to “the state’s lone witness,” meaning that he was not aware of a second witness–of James Imundo and his call to 911 referring to the maroon Durango.
Dwyer had filed the civil suit against FHP on Feb. 5, charging replevin, an action that seeks to recover personal property unlawfully held. The suit sought to recover Isaacs’s Dodge, valued at more than $50,000.
FHP did not respond to the suit until April 28, or 11 days after it had filed the charges against Isaacs. In its response, FHP argued that arguing that no charges had been filed was moot, now that they had been filed. The judge agreed, and dismissed the suit.
By then, Assistant State Attorney Mike Willard had detected problems with the Isaacs investigation, prompting his April 27 request for “crash reconstruction and investigative support” of the arrest affidavit from Cpl. Brian Gensler of FHP’s Specialized Investigation and Reconstruction Teams known as SIRT.
On May 6, State Attorney personnel met with the SIRT team and FHP’s traffic homicide investigations unit to review the case and its discrepancies. That led to SIRT taking over the case. After reviewing the case files, SIRT assumed control of this case under Cpl. David Brunner’s direction.
SIRT’s first destination was the lot where Isaacs’s Durango was held. “The SIRT team did not find any damage on this vehicle suggesti[ng] it was involved in a crash with another vehicle,” the Montalvo affidavit states–a stunning conclusion that essentially reduces the previous investigatory conclusion to a colossal subjective error.
SIRT investigators then examined the Ford Focus involved in the crash and found several areas “to be red or maroon paint transfer” (emphasis added), not black.
The SIRT team “reviewed the names of witnesses obtained during the initial crash investigation, computer aided dispatch reports from FHP and Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, 911 callers, and the State Attorney Investigator.” All of that evidence was available and accessible to FHP’s original investigators. They did not do what the SRIT team did: reach out to the several witnesses or people involved in the crash, including other motorcyclists, for follow-up interviews.
Motorcyclists told the SIRT team that they had been at a family birthday party at Elev8 Fun Center in Sanford, along with Montalvo, who had driven in with her maroon Durango. A couple of hours later, they rode to one of the group’s houses to continue the celebration with cake. Some lost sight of others as they rode, with Montalvo and Joaquin Deno, the 54-year-old who lost his life, riding ahead.
Shane Mather gave a sworn statement to the State Attorney’s Office stating he was traveling east and saw “Deno passing him at a high rate of speed with a Durango directly behind. His initial thought was that the Durango was an unmarked patrol car chasing the motorcycle, since it was so close.” There was some passing. “After both vehicles completed passing the vehicle in front of him,” Mather’s statement, paraphrased in the affidavit, continued, Mather “observed the Durango veer across the middle lane and then into the outside lane striking Deno. The Durango then veered back across the middle lane and into the inside lane striking the right side of Focus, causing the Focus to lose control and strike the Pilot.”
Numerous additional statements the SIRT team secured corroborated and added details to the sequence of the crash, including one witness saying the black “SUV” exited off I-4 at mile marker 108. The witness, Veronica Leigh Frederico, also exited and “noticed heavy damage to the outside of the ‘SUV.’” A witness reported that the Durango’s airbag had deployed on one side.
The crash scene was eight miles from the Elev8 center. When Deno’s daughter reached the scene on her motorcycle, Montalvo had vanished.
It was the SIRT Team’s review of 911 calls that unearthed James Imundo’s description of the “maroon” Durango. In his follow-up statement, “Imundo stated he began to memorize the tag, just in case something happens because of her aggressive driving,” which included swerving across three lanes and at one point driving off the road. Initially, the Durango had pulled over to the side.
The SIRT team secured surveillance photographs of the 2021 Durango taken before and after the crash date, documenting that the car had received body work after the crash, with the “driver and left rear door on the vehicle [] visibly a lighter shade of red than the rest of the vehicle, the driver side window was not tinted, and there were no window rain guards on the driver side of the vehicle,” as there were on other parts of the vehicle.
It was only on May 12 that Brunner first went to Montalvo’s 1360 Lydia Drive address in Deltona to locate the Durango. A search warrant was obtained. Montalvo was pulled over on May 16, and the vehicle seized.
“During the post collision inspection the maroon Durango confirmed significant evidence of concealment and damage consistent with this crash,” the affidavit states. “The driver-side doors had been replaced, the curtain airbag had been unbolted/removed, and seat airbag was stuffed back into the seat. The EDR download showed the vehicle was traveling at 112 mph five seconds before the algorithm was enabled. A receipt was also located within the vehicle where four tires were balanced and mounted on November 18th.”
The SIRT investigation also determined that the Durango had been at 316 Alpine Street in Altamonte Springs, where the resident, Edwin Roman, “frequently scraps vehicle parts and other metals.” He told investigators that Montalvo brought the car to him around Oct. 9 when he took photographs of the left side damage and the vin number on the door. Roman produced the pictures of the damage and the subsequent repairs, including new tires.
“The area of this crash is in a very dark location with no streetlights or ambient lighting in the area,” the SIRT investigation found. “A maroon vehicle can appear to be black in a setting such as this during a [highly] stressful event for an untrained observer.”
The report concludes: “All this evidence supports a Maroon Durango and not a black Durango. In addition, to the facts stated above, we have probable cause to believe that the driving actions of Montalvo in a reckless manner caused and contributed to this fatal crash.”
Montalvo is at the Volusia County jail on no bond.
“This can happen to anybody,” Isaacs said Friday in a press conference in DeLand. “Being incarcerated, falsely incarcerated in jail, in G-Block, was the worst 13 days in my life.”
Me says
Hat’s off to Marc Dwyer, justice has been served.