This browser does not support the Video element.
Man accused of deadly crash 3 years ago charged as adult
A man accused of causing a deadly crash nearly three years ago is now behind bars, but the family of the victim says justice has been slow.
ORLANDO, Fla. - A man accused of causing a deadly crash nearly three years ago is now behind bars, but the family of the victim says justice has been slow.
Yaxiel LeBron-Flores, now 18, is facing manslaughter charges as an adult for the 2023 crash that killed a 23-year-old Christian Romero.
The backstory:
On April 23, 2023, the Florida Highway Patrol says then 15-year-old LeBron-Flores sped through a red light in a stolen car, hitting and killing Romero. There were five other kids between the ages of 13 and 16 inside the first vehicle, all of whom were injured.
CLICK TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX LOCAL APP
After more than two years, LeBron-Flores was charged with manslaughter. He was booked into the Orange County Jail on July 2, 2025.
The charges
Lebron-Flores is being charged as an adult for manslaughter, but Romero says the Assistant State Attorney warned her he would try him under the Youthful Offender Act. That caps his sentence at a maximum of 6 years in prison, as opposed to the 15 he could get for a second-degree felony as an adult.
Other crimes
It took over two years for Lebron-Flores to be arrested for manslaughter, and court records show he didn’t steer clear of the law at that time.
In December 2024, he was cited for being a spectator in a street race, but never paid the fine. In 2025, the Florida Highway Patrol says his careless driving led him to hit a woman’s car.
SIGN-UP FOR FOX 35'S BREAKING NEWS, DAILY NEWS NEWSLETTERS
A court filing shows the prosecutors plan to bring those cases up in Lebron-Flores’ manslaughter trial.
What they're saying:
Romero has been encouraging her supporters to email the prosecutor for her son’s case, asking him to ditch the plan to allow Lebron-Flores to be charged with a Youthful Offender status.
"Christian was 23 years old. His life was just getting started," said Dawn Romero, Christian’s mother.
She says around 100 people have already emailed to advocate for her son.
Romero says she doesn’t have an exact number for what sentence she’d recommend… but she feels a cap of 6 years is too low.
"By them charging him as an adult but giving him the leeway of a Youthful Offender, he's just getting a slap in the wrist, and we don't feel that that's right," she said. "No punishment is going to bring Christian back, and we understand that. But we feel that Miss Worrell needs to be, she needs to hold this juvenile accountable for his actions."
What's next:
Lebron-Flores is scheduled for a pretrial conference on Thursday.
The Source: This story was written based on information shared by Dawn Romero, the mother of 23-year-old Christian Romero, who died in a 2023 crash, the Florida Highway Patrol, and the State Attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit of Florida.