Fatal hit-and-run suspect’s past includes reckless driving and beating pregnant women

Danny Leiva, the man accused of being the driver in a fatal hit-and-run Monday in Hialeah, has a history of charges that include drugs, burglary, driving without a license and battering a pregnant woman.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Leiva remained in Miami-Dade Corrections custody, granted $66,500 bond.

Hialeah cops say Leiva drove the car seen on video zooming through the intersection of East 41st Street and Fifth Avenue and hitting an SUV. The female passenger died on the scene. The male passenger was airlifted to Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital. Herald news partner CBS4 put their ages at 70 and 54, respectively.

Cops claim Leiva, 40, ran from the scene only to be captured soon after. He faces charges of DUI manslaughter/failure to render aid; leaving the scene of a crash involving a death; vehicular homicide/failing to stop; driving without a license in an incident involving death; and being a habitual offender of driving while his license is suspended.

From 2002 to 2016, Leiva received eight tickets for knowingly driving with a suspended license. Five of those tickets resulted in convictions. He also paid an $838.75 fine on a reckless driving ticket from an August 2015 crash.

The last no-license conviction was prosecuted as a felony, part of a 2004 package of charges in Leiva’s first prison sentence: three counts of cocaine possession, one count each of driving with a suspended license, possession of a controlled substance, felony possession of marijuana and aggravated battery on a pregnant woman.

Leiva served two years, four months and two weeks.

A later arrest of aggravated battery involved a different pregnant woman, according to Miami-Dade court online records, but no charge ever was filed formally.

Leiva returned to prison in November 2011 and stayed for two years, six months on charges of two counts of burglary, one count of grand theft between $300 and $5,000, one count of resisting an officer with violence and one of criminal mischief with property damage.

This story was originally published July 3, 2019 at 2:49 PM.