Law&Crime Sidebar - Bodycam: Model High on ‘Pink Cocaine’ Resists Officers After Double Killing

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

Maecee Lathers, 24, is back in jail after Miami prosecutors charged her with new counts of DUI manslaughter. The self-proclaimed model allegedly tried to leave the scene of a three-car crash, telling officers when they detained her that she was on drugs, that she was from the future and that aliens were coming. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber has a closer look at the new video and charges with trial attorney Alexis Rosenberg.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/LCSidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger and Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wonderly Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wonderly Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. views shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. They're coming. They're coming. They're going to go. We're taking a closer look at the nearly incoherent ramblings of a woman who police say caused a chain reaction crash in Miami while she was high in what's called pink cocaine. This, as she faces even more charges, we're going to discuss the evidence against her with trial attorney Alexis Rosenberg. Welcome to Sidebar.

Presented by Law and Crime, I'm Jesse Weber. Macy Marie Lathers calls herself an Instagram model, posting seductive photos of herself, seemingly in the hopes of maybe getting jobs at parties and events in the might be. Miami area. But police say her decision to speed through an intersection and slam into another car might put her behind bars for a long time. That is the allegation that she is facing. And we are getting a look at what first responders were dealing with as though they responded to this deadly crash at around 6.45 a.m. on August 10th. Body cam video shows the wreckage of three cars. Investigators say Lathers was driving around 80 miles an hour in a white Mercedes with her

foot on the gas pedal 100% when she allegedly ran a red light and crashed into a black range rover. And that collision caused the SUV to smash into a Suzuki. Two people in that car were killed in this crash, identified by family as Abraham, Ismail Molina Cruz, and his friend Jesus Rubio. Abraham's partner, Juanita Hernandez, was also in the crash, but she survived. She says they were just on their way to work when this happened. And the driver of the Rangerover also survived this crash. Now, law and crime, we have obtained body cam footage from Miami police that shows an officer's arrival at what is truly a chaotic scene where first responders are working to remove at least one person from the crushed car and a block away. The officer

finds one of his colleagues guarding a woman who is laying on the ground with her hands cuffed behind her back and that is 24-year-old Macy Lathers. And she appears to moan and seems to roll around in pain and is really unsure of what exactly is going on. Now, witnesses would later tell police that she walked away from the crash, her crashed Mercedes-Benz, that she tried to leave the scene entirely, but they stopped her. And the officers are trying to figure out if Lathers has any injuries, and that's when she reveals that she took a drug known as Tusi or Pink Cocaine. Now, if you don't know what that is, according to an NYU Medical School report that was published

in 2023. This is usually a combination of a lot of different drugs, ketamine, ecstasy, cocaine, meth, opioids, other psychoactive. It's a synthetic drug. Researchers say that it's pink color. It's just for looks. So don't be surprised. Take a look at this video. Ma'am. Hey, hey, hey, hey, chill out, chill out. Relax. Chill out. Relax.

Relax. You see what you're going to do. Hmm? You see where what happened? You see where what happened? Stay like that. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. I need rescue here to check out one of the passengers in the vehicle. Two, seven. Yeah. Miami and eight. On the south east of one corner, black shirt, Mugeet.

Relax. Stay on your left because you're doing up. Stay like that. Look that way. Ma'am, can you stay over there looking that way? we're looking that way No, that's good. She's really sideways, well.

Wait, ma'am. Relax. Relax. She's good, she's good, for many, ah! Okay,

so I'll open the bridge. She's good, right? I think. Oh, let's get her. I think you were involved in the crash. She probably won't be able to walk. Does anything hurt you? Who, who has heard the team?

Yeah, they'll be there. We have real time one attack for me. Can you both turn? Do you get other people in the car? Yeah, they have more. Okay. The other car, I didn't mean my money is... My mole, my mom.

What? Ma'am, what car are you driving? Is it? Is it? That's what car? My name is Mercedes. Mercedes. Come down, come down.

Come down. Come down. Come down. I'm from the future. Awesome. Are you on drugs? What do you on? Oh, wow.

Four, five, one. I mean, though, if you know that we have the same, you can advise fire rescue. She just told us now she's on two seats. So, uh, joke. She's, uh, she's going to be one of the vehicles they got into a collision. She's claiming she's on two seats. Is this unrelated? Yeah, no, it's related.

They had her detained. She's with the white Mercedes. They're going to turn next page. I have no next page. She would walk the hole here? She would walk the wall for? Yeah. She tried and leave the scene.

Do you look at your right on one? No, she's come. Oh, she's come. All right, we'll sit her up, we'll get an assessor. We try to make sure she's not like a trauma on work. Okay. Ma'am, ma'am. Relax.

Remember I told you to relax? Get up. Yep. Okay. Get her up. Get her up. She's gone. Walk.

We're going to do a quick assessment in the back. We're just going to do a quick assessment in the back. and uh she's about it what she doesn't she is on tucy so she's serving up she's like oh i'm from the future okay hold on man

we'll get her there because she's not too see yeah she's because supposedly she tried to leave the scene all right I'm just gonna need an officer

to come with it yeah yeah They're coming. They're coming. They're going to go. Yeah. I'll go go. All right.

Now, according to the state, Lather's toxicology report found that there was no alcohol in her system, but there was a variety of drugs. By the way, as we hear cases like this and we think about what defendant's arguments will be in court, especially in cases where the evidence can seem quite overwhelming. It just shows you, in my opinion, the importance of having really good lawyers, right? We talk about that all the time. Well, with that in mind, how could I not quickly call out another great law firm?

Morgan and Morgan, our proud sponsor here on Sidebar. Look, the truth is, if you should get injured this firm with over 1,000 attorneys, maybe who you want in your corner. They're America's largest injury law firm for a reason. They win a lot. Morgan Morgan's clients, they not only get a legal team, but they get case investigators, power legal, specialists. There's no upfront fee. You only pay them if you win. The whole process can be done straight from your smartphone. It is super streamlined. So if you're injured,

you can easily start a claim at for the people.com slash LC sidebar. Okay, let's get back into it. Lathers originally faced eight counts when she first appeared in Miami's bond court, was revealed that not only did she not have a driver's license, but apparently she is, had been banned from having one. After the crash, there's video surveillance of her, exiting the vehicle and walking northbound away from the crash, never rendering aid or calling 911 to assist those who were injured in the crash.

Unknown bystanders grabbed a defendant and took her back to the scene of the crash and helped her until the police arrived. So basically the cars all landed in different locations. And when the police arrived, they saw that she was under influence. I guess they believe police were assisting her. They asked her question. She advised she was under the influence of two C, a known party drug, and that she was from the future and had a crystal ball. And she was placed in the recovery position until fire rescue arrived because she was

vomiting. And so victim one had to be extracted from the vehicle three and was transported to the hospital writer trauma and in critical condition and was later dispronounced deceased due to his injuries. Victim 2 was removed from vehicle 3 and transported to Jackson with facial and arm lacerations. Victim 3 was pronounced deceased on the scene by the fire rescue. Victim 4 was transported to JMH in stable condition. So there's a There's two people that died and two that were injured. The vehicle was registered to her, but she doesn't have a Florida's driver's license. And a further search revealed that under her date of birth and name, she has a Florida driver's license

and it was suspended indefinitely January 16th of 2024. So that's what this case is about. After prosecutors got the data from a vehicle search warrant, they added more charges. And that data showed just how fast Lathers was driving at the time of the crash and that she really didn't let up on the accelerator. The speed limit on that stretch of road is our understanding to be 30 miles an hour. But the car's computer apparently showed that Lathers had been going 57 miles per hour and then sped up to nearly 80 miles per hour before impact. Lathers had been given $140,000 bond at her bond hearing, which she posted. Her attorney says that she was preparing to leave detention when she was hit

with the additional charges. So $26,000 was added to the previous bail amount plus stricter rules for Lather's house arrest. And she had been out on bond for a couple of weeks when she was once again back in court and this time she was putting cuffs and hauled off to jail. And that is because prosecutors added two new DUI manslaughter charges for allegedly driving under the influence. And reporters in the courtroom say that Lathers seem to look surprised that she had to sit with other inmates in court for their hearings. Prosecutors did some rearranging of the charges against Lathers, and she now faces 10 counts. And we double-checked with the Miami-Dade County, and these are the charges that we see. Two counts of DUI manslaughter for the deaths of Ismael and Rubio, which includes the aggravating factor of failure to render aid.

One count of DUI causing bodily injury to another. one count of reckless driving causing serious injury, three counts of driving without a driver's license resulting in injury or death, two counts of vehicular homicide caused by failure to stop, one count of leaving the scene of an accident involving death. Juanita Hernandez was also in court this past week when Lathers was taken into custody, and she told local outlet NBC6 that it was a horrible feeling seeing her and that she didn't look remorseful. She said the defendant is a danger to society. Lathers has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

He's expected back in court again next week for a pre-trial detention hearing. Now I want to bring on Florida trial attorney Alexis Rosenberg. Alexis, good to see you. Thanks for coming on. My understanding is you are in Fort Lauderdale, not too far from Miami. Just starting off, when we talk about 2C, when we talk about pink cocaine, is that prevalent in that area? Is that something that people talk about? Thank you for having me on, first of all.

Well, Miami, the area of Miami, when it comes to the club scene, it does seem to have a history of being a leader in these type of club drugs. So pink cocaine is on what they refer to as a club drug. And this drug, as you kind of touched upon, is a combination of drugs, which you brought up is very interesting because she didn't have any alcohol in her system. Yeah, no, she didn't have any alcohol in her system. So it seems like it's really we're focusing on the Tuesday, on the drug, which makes me think how she's going to defend herself. And I'll get to that in a second. But first I want to go to this new development, this new footage that came out. How does this footage affect the case?

Well, it's going to be, it appears to be that it's going to be a very much of an uphill battle for whoever is defending this case. Because now we have footage right after her state and how she was. just the testimony that would ultimately come out if there's a trial about what she was saying and how she was acting. I think that there is a lot of damaging evidence against her. I mean, just her admissions, which are going to have a hard time keeping out, as well as the state she was in. And the pictures, I mean, the pictures of these vehicles are really, really going to be impactful on a jury. What would be a defense here? the only defense that I could possibly think of is that she didn't actually ingest the drugs that meaning that intentionally maybe somebody spiked her drink or something of that nature and she didn't know but the thing was she does make that admission and during that admission she doesn't say that she thinks somebody put something in her drink or during the admission that I don't know you know I'm not feeling right she knew exactly what that you know she had

taken and ingested. So that would still be a very much of a held battle as well. The reason I say that is because there's a case that came out. And now I look at drug-induced crimes very differently. It was the Brins-Spetcher case. This woman stabbed a man over a hundred times and she had a marijuana-induced psychosis. And in that case, yes, she was convicted of manslaughter, but the judge ended up sentencing her to probation, not prison. So now I look at all these cases a little bit differently, and I think it matters in terms of what was ingested, how was it ingested, what did you know of this drug?

So obviously we're still developing some of the facts here. There could be a fact pattern. I'm not saying it's true, but there could be a fact pattern where she says, I didn't realize I ingested 2C, but I've taken it before, so I knew what it was, I knew what the effect was on me. Maybe that's why she said, yeah, I'm high on 2C, but do you think that that could be a possibility where you take this drug, you might not know the effects it would have, you don't anticipate the effects that it would have,

and you get behind the wheel, you cause a terrible crash, you don't mean to walk away, not to say that she wouldn't be found guilty, but maybe she wouldn't necessarily go to prison or go to prison for many years. I don't know. You tell me. Well, I think that case is slightly different in the sense that marijuana generally overall does not have the effect of making you go and stab somebody like that. So I think that there was a stronger argument to be made that that was extremely unusual under those circumstances. However, in this case, this is a cocktail of drugs that A going in, you pretty much, it is. you know, don't know. You're playing Russian roulette in a way because you don't really know what exactly is in it.

And you're going in that with open, with open eyes, as well as some of the effects that she had, the hallucinations and things of those nature that we're that are coming out are consistent with, you know, that particular drug. Now, getting behind the car and driving fast and hallucinating, we would hope she wouldn't get behind the wheel. But the hallucinations would be consistent with what you were trying to achieve if you were trying to take this drug. And taking as if she really was hallucinating, talking about aliens and things like that, that she's from the future, would make sense. Why was she hit with the D.Y manslaughter charges now, and what do you have to prove in order to get a conviction for those? So they were waiting the state attorney because they wanted the toxicology to come back to show what was in our system and the levels that were in.

her system. Like you had mentioned, you know, initially the police officers weren't sure if she was manifesting what the way she was initially because she was injured. You know, they really didn't know what was going on because it's not unheard of somebody, you know, hits their head and has a concussion. It can manifest in different, in different ways. So, you know, they weren't sure about that. So they were waiting. That was the main reason for that. I mean, the manslaughter, the vehicular homicide in Florida is pretty easy to prove in the sense that we have that you were, you know, driving recklessly. I think that's going to be easy. And someone basically died due to it. So I don't think there's no intent. You don't have to have the intent that you want to harm somebody.

It really is they get through the intent that way that you had the intent to get behind the wheel. and then you acted in the manner that you acted, and because of that, somebody died. So, I mean, that's going to be based on the facts that we're hearing unless something else comes out. You know, that's going to be pretty easy for the prosecution to get a conviction on that. And what is she looking at in terms of a potential punishment? My understanding and correct if I'm wrong, the manslaughter could be, what, four to 30 years in prison? But she's also hit with numerous charges. So what could she potentially be looking at if she's convicted across the board?

Well, the vehicular manslaughter is a maximum of 15. So, but she's looking at with all of these potentially 30 years, that's a long, long time. Now, unfortunately, I mean, because we do have two individuals that are deceased, the likelihood of even if she was convicted by a jury that she would be sentenced to that is pretty low. I mean, it really is pretty low. I don't believe- Why do you say that? Why do you say that considering two lives were taken and what is arguably, you know, a

She hasn't been found guilty yet, but what is clearly a senseless case, they were on their way to work. And the allegation of some girl who's high on, you know, this synthetic drug just slams right into them, killing them. I mean, is 30 years outside the realm of possibility? I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility, but generally overall, if you look at sentencing that in that area, that's not customary. I mean, we do. This has gotten a lot of media attention. So it may be that. First of all, likelihood is this isn't going to go to a trial. She's probably going to take a plea. But that being said, I think it hasn't come out. I believe she didn't really have a prior record other than the suspended license. Now, the court is going to take that into consideration for sure if we get to the sentencing phase. But whether she is a prior record is going to be calculated. into that as well. I'm assuming that she would also put forth different individuals that would come forward and say she's an amazing human being and this was just a mess up or she was a drug, you know, had a dependency issue. And if I was her attorney, I would advise her to get in a rehab

right now because really that when it comes to sentencing is going to be a huge thing. You know, are you acknowledging you had a dependency issue as well as are you seeking treatment? what would be a deal what would a deal look like you know i definitely think the deal and this situation is going to include actually her serving some time i'm not saying that they're going to offer a deal that she doesn't serve some sort of time the question is how much time is she going to serve i mean i'm just not like we've we've been discussing this what are her defenses her defenses really are okay somebody put something in her drink possibly that they could try that you had sentencing what you said about reducing it because she didn't realize she was going to react that way but now she's all over social media as well that we've got her appearing like she's partying pretty much all the time in some form or and so that could potentially come in as well if she tries to play that or argued that she you know had never done this before this drug but now we have posts where she's out on yachts um you know with drinks

in her hand. She really seems to appear from her social media that she was in that scene. I was going to ask you if any of that social media content would make its way in. That's an interesting perspective about now. Obviously, the defense would say it's irrelevant, it's prejudicial. Bond hearing. You talk about the idea of she should get herself in a rehab. She's currently in jail. There's going to be a bond hearing next week. What do you think the likelihood is that her defense could mount a successful argument that she should be out pending trial? under the circumstances I don't think they're going to win that but related to the you know going for help going to rehab her attorney can file a motion and ask that she's able to do that the likelihood is the court depending on the type of place that she was seeking to go would probably grant that in my experience they want to support that and it's just a question of how restrictive that is that you know she can't come and go check herself out and they would put in parameters about that well to end this and to put a bow

on this and going back to the victims in this case there has been this go fund me that has been set up and mr. nandez who i mentioned wrote this and i want everybody to hear this abraham's son just 16 years old has been left without the love and care of his father who was his whole world due to my injuries and i am unable to work at the moment and the young man's life has changed radically His mother, who lives in Nicaragua and suffers from Parkinson's, is also now grieving, helpless, and without the financial support, her son provided. Again, just a really tragic situation, sad situation. We will see how it progresses, whether a plea deal will actually happen, and the immediate future to see if she's out on bond next week. Alexis Rosenberg, thank you so much for coming on.

Really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. All right, everybody. That's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time.

Spotify.