Video of the incident that's since gone viral online shows the Corvette speeding down a sidewalk outside Flamingo Park near Michigan Avenue. As the vehicle speeds away, a Miami Beach Police car quickly makes a U-turn and chases the Corvette.
It turns out police had already been on the hunt for the vehicle, which was stolen, at the time the video was shot. Around 3 p.m. Monday, MBPD issued a citywide alert to its officers to be on the lookout for the Corvette after a license-plate reader alerted cops that the stolen ride was driving near Sixth Street and Washington Avenue.
Officer Tino Serrano spotted the vehicle on the 800
Serrano had tried to make a traffic stop near Fifth Street and Jefferson, but just as officers got out of their vehicle to approach the Corvette, it sped away, drove over the median and against traffic, and made a right onto Michigan.
The chase continued, and as the Corvette sped down Lenox, it crashed into a fire hydrant and yanked it out of the ground. The car even sped past South Pointe Elementary as children were being dismissed from school. Luckily, another cop placed the school on a temporary lockdown while the car sped nearby.
The officers eventually lost sight of the vehicle, but not for long.
Police began canvassing the area once they no longer saw the Corvette careening down the city's streets. Officer Steven Ybern spotted the stolen vehicle in a parking lot outside Smith & Wollensky. Inside the restaurant, Officer Serrano spotted the same people he had seen in the vehicle moments earlier: 40-year-old Raul Martin Decasanova and 32-year-old Ashley Jolyn Wymer.
The two were handcuffed, though police say Decasanova put up a fight. Wymer locked herself in the bathroom, and both initially provided the officers with fake IDs. It's no wonder they tried to hide their identities: Both have previously been arrested on charges of grand theft auto in Broward.
Wymer was arrested for grand theft of a motor vehicle by the Broward County Sheriff's Office this past March, and Decasanova — who is originally from New Jersey and has a lengthy rap sheet of charges including stalking, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, false imprisonment, and battery on a law enforcement officer — was arrested and charged with grand theft of a motor vehicle in July 2010.
Wymer initially provided officers with a driver's license claiming her name was Sabina Yvonne Woodrick but later admitted it was fake. Decasanova's license was revoked in 2014 and had an active bench warrant for trespassing in Broward. When cops searched the car, they also found weed in the center console and a "suspected crack pipe with mesh and residue under the driver's seat," the police report states. Only two months earlier, Wymer was arrested in Miami-Dade County for felony possession of a controlled substance.
Wymer and Decasanova were arrested and booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. Decasanova is being held on charges of grand theft auto — a felony — resisting an officer without violence, providing false information to law enforcement, possession of drug paraphernalia with intent to use, and possession of 20 grams or fewer of weed. According to booking info from the Miami-Dade Department of Corrections, Decasanova is being held on a $9,000 bond and had additional warrants out for his arrest for reckless driving and leaving the scene of an accident with property damage.
Wymer was charged with grand theft auto, trespassing, resisting an officer without violence, providing false information to law enforcement, and possession of 20 grams or fewer of cannabis. She's being held on a $4,000 bond.
