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The 45-year-old suspect in the fatal hit-and-run collision Feb. 15 that killed 16-year-old Sara Yara pleaded not guilty in an unrelated traffic case Friday, waiving his right to a jury trial.
Mitchel Miyashiro, who has racked up 164 traffic citations and other crimes over the years, was arrested Jan. 5 for driving without a driver’s license and driving with a suspended or revoked license.
A police officer had stopped Miyashiro at 1:53 a.m. for driving a prohibited vehicle in a bicycle lane. The citation says the two right tires of the 2001 silver Toyota Tacoma he was driving — the same vehicle involved in Yara’s death — encroached in the bike lane for a distance of about 20 feet.
The court records show that the charge of driving with a suspended or revoked license was dismissed since it duplicated the charge of driving without a license.
The state asked the court Feb. 6 to lower the severity of the offense from a misdemeanor to a petty misdemeanor, which was granted. But Deputy Prosecutor Andrew Itsuno asked the court on March 1, after Yara’s death, to amend the severity back to a misdemeanor. He cited state law that anyone caught driving without a license is subject to a maximum fine of $1,000 and up to a year in jail or both if they have two or more convictions within the prior five-year period.
Itsuno listed Miyashiro’s three prior convictions for driving without a license in 2019 and 2020. The state’s motion was granted May 1.
Miyashiro has yet to be charged in the Feb. 15 collision that killed Yara, a McKinley High School student. He was driving the Tacoma pickup truck without a driver’s license when Yara and another girl were struck at about 6:40 a.m. while walking to school in a marked crosswalk at Kapiolani Boulevard and Kamakee Street. The other girl was not seriously injured.
Miyashiro turned himself in to police Feb. 16 and was arrested on suspicion of first-degree negligent homicide and collisions involving death or serious bodily injury, and collisions involving bodily injury.
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