Dania Beach Deputies Say a Dealership Worker Asked a Coworker to Price Repairs on the Sonata That Killed a Man

A 21-year-old dealership employee asked a coworker how much it would cost to fix a damaged 2025 Hyundai Sonata, according to a Broward Sheriff’s Office arrest report. The coworker looked the car over, decided the damage hadn’t come from hitting another vehicle, and someone at the dealership called deputies.

Deputies say that Sonata killed a man on Sheridan Street in Dania Beach at about 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 17. Keila Maldonado was arrested and charged with leaving the scene of a crash involving death and with tampering with or fabricating evidence, NBC6 reported. A judge set her bond at $51,000 on Sunday. She is presumed innocent.

The man was found lying in the road in the 200 block of Sheridan Street, just east of U.S. 1 and next to New Bethany Tabernacle Church, CBS Miami reported. He was pronounced dead at the scene. BSO has not released his name.

Walking or riding

The sheriff’s account and the arrest report don’t describe the same crash. Investigators said the man was crossing the westbound lanes when he was hit, according to NBC6. In the arrest report, Maldonado told detectives she struck a person on a scooter and didn’t know which road she was on. CBS Miami reported she gave a coworker the same scooter version.

None of the reporting says whether a scooter was recovered on Sheridan Street. That detail matters less to the leaving-the-scene charge than to the eventual reconstruction, which will have to settle where the man was and what he was on when the Sonata reached him.

A car that wasn’t hers

Maldonado told detectives she took the car from the dealership the day before, without anyone there knowing, and drove to the beach in Hollywood. NBC6 described the Hyundai as a rental, and CBS Miami reported she told an employee she had taken “a rental car” without permission. Neither outlet says what her job at the store was, or whose rental program a Hyundai sitting at a Lexus dealership belonged to.

Detectives connected the crash to the car through debris left in the road. One piece carried an identification number, according to CBS Miami, and that pointed them to the dealership. The reports don’t say what kind of number it was. A part number stamped into a bumper cover or lamp housing narrows a search to a model and year range. A VIN label points to one car. Federal parts-marking rules (49 CFR Part 541) require VIN labels on bumpers, hoods, fenders and doors, but only on car lines NHTSA has designated as high-theft.

The estimate

According to the report as described by NBC6, Maldonado asked a coworker for a repair estimate. He inspected the car and concluded the damage didn’t look like it came from a collision with another vehicle. She then told him she had hit someone near Hollywood and left.

The coworker she reportedly asked writes up collision damage for a living. A manager asked for the key. Maldonado left the dealership, was called back, and returned. CBS Miami reported that a security manager secured the car and an employee alerted BSO.

Detectives found the Sonata on the second floor of the parking garage at Lexus of North Miami, which sits in North Miami Beach in neighboring Miami-Dade County. The dealership has not commented publicly; its part in the story so far comes entirely through the arrest report.

The hour in the plaza

The report also covers the minutes after the crash. Maldonado parked at a nearby shopping plaza and watched police and paramedics work on the man for about an hour, NBC6 reported. She told detectives she didn’t call law enforcement.

Florida’s leaving-the-scene law is written around that gap. Section 316.027 requires a driver in a crash that kills someone to stop at the scene and remain there until meeting the duties in section 316.062, which include giving a name, address and registration number and rendering reasonable assistance.

A willful violation is a first-degree felony with a four-year mandatory minimum prison term and a license revocation of at least three years. A defendant can ask the court to go below that minimum unless the crash happened while driving under the influence. None of the reporting mentions impairment.

Tampering with evidence under section 918.13 is a third-degree felony. It covers altering, concealing or removing an item to keep it from an investigation. The published accounts don’t say which act the count rests on: driving the car back to the dealership, parking it on the garage’s second floor, or asking for the repair.

The arrest

BSO Traffic Homicide Unit detectives made the arrest, WSVN reported. According to NBC6, they gave Maldonado two options: return to Broward County with them, or be arrested by the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office on a warrant and extradited. She went with the detectives.

No attorney for Maldonado appears in the reporting, and no next court date has been published. The man on Sheridan Street still hasn’t been identified. Next up is the Broward State Attorney’s Office decision on whether to file both counts, and the Traffic Homicide Unit’s reconstruction, which will have to say whether he was walking or riding when he was hit.

If a coworker brought you a damaged car and said she’d hit someone and driven off, would you call deputies yourself on the spot, or go to a manager first?

Sources: Broward Sheriff’s Office arrest report and statements as reported by NBC6, CBS Miami and WSVN; Florida Statutes 316.027 and 918.13; 49 CFR Part 541.

About the Author

Shawn Henry

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Shawn Henry has spent years writing about cars, and it shows—not in a resume kind of way, but in how he talks about them. He's the type who'll notice the weird trim option nobody remembers and actually know why it mattered. At Backfire News, he covers pretty much the whole spectrum: off-road trucks and trail builds, performance cars, racing, and the collector market. He's comfortable getting into the technical weeds, but he never forgets that most people read about cars because cars are fun, not because they want a spec sheet. His beat runs from classic and collector vehicles to overlanding culture, modified performance builds, new automotive tech, and the industry news that actually affects what ends up in your driveway. Mostly, though, Shawn thinks the best car stories are about people—the builds they pour money into, the road trips, the communities that form around a shared obsession. That's the stuff he likes writing about, and it's what you'll find in his work here.

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