Fatal Traffic Crash Charges Land Woman In Prison: Sarasota Police

SARASOTA, FL — A Sarasota woman was sentenced to 11.5 years in prison for charges related to a 2020 fatal traffic crash.

Alyssa Raffaele, 52, pled no contest to DUI manslaughter with failure to render aid on Aug. 14, according to a Sarasota Police Department news release.

She was sentenced on Sept. 12. In addition to prison time and three years of probation, her driver’s license has been revoked for life and she faces other DUI sanctions.

Police responded to a hit-and-run crash at the intersection of S. Osprey Avenue and Grove Street on Sept. 29, 2020, at 4:30 p.m.

A man riding a motorized scooter was hit by an SUV, whose driver didn’t stop at the crash scene, police said. The man was brought to a hospital and later died from his injuries.

Just before 6 p.m. that day, officers pulled over an SUV matching the description of the one involved in the earlier crash.

Raffaele, who was driving the SUV, was suspected by officers of being under the influence of alcohol, police said.

They conducted field sobriety exercises and arrested Raffaele for DUI. She was brought to the Sarasota County Jail, where a breath sample found she had a 0.294 alcohol level, police said.

After the victim died, SPD’s traffic homicide investigators took over the case and found that she was responsible for the crash.