Michele Traverso, the driver who fatally struck bicyclist Aaron Cohen in a hit-and-run on the Rickenbacker Causeway, was released Sunday night, serving only two-thirds of his already very short sentence.
He walked free just 264 days after his sentencing, a Miami-Dade Corrections spokesperson confirmed, 100 days short of his 364-day jail sentence.
Traverso, 26, was sentenced to less than a year in jail and just two years house arrest even though he was driving illegally and on probation for cocaine charges when he fatally struck Cohen in February 2012.
He had also been reportedly partying at a Coconut Grove bar until 6 a.m. before striking the cyclist on his way home to his Key Biscayne condo, where he then hid his banged up car under a tarp.
His jail sentence was so short it has inspired legislation in Tallahassee.
Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla (R-Miami) recently filed the “Aaron Cohen Life Protection Act” bill, upping the minimum jail sentences for leaving the scene of an accident to three years for an accident resulting in injury, seven years for serious bodily injury, and 10 years for a hit-and-run resulting in death.
In another high-profile fatal hit-and-run case, aspiring pop singer Carlos Bertonatti was recently sentenced to 12 years in prison after a 2010 crash in which he drove with the victim's bike wedged under his car for miles along the Rickenbacker Causeway.
This is a developing story.