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Pickup driver arrested in fatal car crash

By Times Staff Writer
Published September 24, 2005

TAMPA - The driver of the pickup truck involved in a crash on Interstate 4 Thursday that resulted in the death of a 6-year-old girl has been arrested.

Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Larry Coggins said Luis Perez-Amezcua, 27, of 6414 Casitas Court in Tampa, had a suspended license and should not have been driving. Troopers arrested Perez-Amezcua at 9 p.m. Thursday at Tampa General Hospital, where he was treated for minor injuries from the crash.

Perez-Amezcua was jailed on one count of driving with a suspended license during a fatal crash, a felony, records show. Coggins said his license had been suspended because he failed to pay two traffic tickets. Bail was set at $10,000.

Perez-Amezcua, who told troopers he works as a radio disc jockey in Bartow, was driving a 2003 GMC Sierra pickup truck west on I-4 in the center lane east of 50th Street at 1:45 p.m. when he sped up and rammed into the back of a Pontiac driven by 64-year-old Jalane Stone, according to an FHP report.

Nicole Stone, 6, of St. Petersburg was buckled into the back seat. Her father, 37-year-old Brian Stone, was a passenger in the front seat, according to the FHP. Nicole was taken to TGH, where she died, Coggins said. Her father and grandmother were not injured.

[Last modified September 24, 2005, 00:59:07]