TAMPA, Fla. — A Hillsborough County circuit judge rejected a request to reduce a 24-year prison sentence set for Cameron Herrin, the man convicted of killing a mother and her daughter in a crash on Bayshore Boulevard.
Herrin and his legal team assert that on the day after his sentencing for the 2018 deaths, then-State Attorney Andrew Warren left a voicemail message calling the sentence "excessively harsh," reads court documents filed Nov. 8. Warren reportedly said, in later conversations, that 10 years would have been "OK."
But Warren did not join Herrin and his defense in a motion to reduce or modify the sentences. Warren, who was suspended earlier this summer by Gov. Ron DeSantis for what he called "a neglect of duty" regarding other issues, previously stated he was surprised by the judge's sentence.
"...But, at the end of the day, my job as state attorney was to hold the defendants accountable, to fight for the victims’ family and to deliver the justice that Jessica and Lillia deserved, and that’s exactly what we did," Warren said during an earlier news conference.
Herrin's team told the court that it "never had the benefit of the views of Mr. Warren as it considered the sentence which [it] would be imposing on Mr. Herrin," the documents read.
Judge Christopher Nash, in court documents, said that the court accepts the representations of Herrin's defense regarding the day after sentencing — a sentence pursued by Warren's office. But the judge did not wish to consider other comments from Warren that may have been said thereafter.
Herrin last year pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide and unlawful racing. He and John Barrineau were charged in the Bayshore Boulevard crash that claimed the life of 24-year-old Jessica Reisinger and her 21-month-old daughter, Lillia, who she was pushing in a stroller when she was hit by Herrin's Ford Mustang.
Barrineau pleaded guilty to two counts of vehicular homicide and a misdemeanor racing charge in exchange for six years in state prison, followed by 15 years of probation.