Carlos Bertonatti, the musician charged with drunkenly killing a cyclist and then speeding away on the Rickenbacker Causeway last month, was handcuffed and escorted back to jail this morning.
After Bertonatti pleaded not guilty to the charges of vehicular homicide, DUI manslaughter, leaving the scene of a fatal accident, and resisting arrest, prosecutors introduced a motion to return the 28-year-old Key Biscayne resident to jail.Riptide is waiting on the motion to get the precise details, but we're told prosecutors asked that he be returned to custody for misleading Homeland Security about his place of birth.
UPDATE: Bertonatti's bail was revoked, according to the prosecutor's motion, because he lied to Judge David Miller about possessing only a Venezuelan passport and because he has a lengthy history of skipping out on court dates.
According to prosecutors, Bertonatti has "an additional passport issued by Argentina," which he didn't see fit to mention during his bond hearing.
What's more, prosecutors say that Bertonatti has missed court hearings on four seperate occassions in the past on traffic charges.
Strangely, prosecutors also testified in court that they have reason to believe that Bertonatti may actually hold a third passport that he didn't mention in his bond hearing, from Romania, of all places.
State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle says that Bertonatti first came to Florida in 1996 on a family business visa issued in Bucharest that says he is a Romanian citizen.
What's more, in June 2003, Rundle says, Bertonatti was traveling to Costa Rica and presented an Argentine passport with the same number as the Venezuelan passport he presented to the courts last month.
Finally, in 2005 Bertonatti stated on a visa application that he was born in Argentina -- not in Venezuela as he usually says.
Given all those inconsistencies, and the fact that "the defendent's extensive history of traffic offenses demonstrates that the defendent poses a danger to the community," according to prosecutors, Bertonatti's bond was revoked this morning.
Judge Miller has set an initial trial date for Bertonatti on May 3.
In the meantime, check out our longer piece about Bertonatti and his family's extensive history in Miami courts.
