Jury Deliberates Fate of Driver Charged in 2019 Crash That Killed Broward Deputy – NBC 6 South Florida

Jurors continued deliberations Friday in the trial of a driver charged in the 2019 crash that killed a Broward Sheriff’s Office deputy just days before he was set to leave the department.

Deputy Benjamin “Benji” Nimtz was killed in the crash back in July of 2019 as he was responding to a domestic violence call in Deerfield Beach.

Now, almost four years later, the case against the driver, Darran Joseph Johnson, is in the jury’s hands.

Prosecutors said Johnson, who’s facing DUI manslaughter, vehicular homicide and other charges, was drunk and failed to yield when he slammed into Nimtz’s car.

Evidence showed the deputy had his lights and sirens flashing as he rushed to the call.

Johnson, now 36, also shouldn’t have been behind the wheel at the time of the crash because his license was suspended, officials said.

Nimtz was 30 years old at the time and left behind a wife and two children. He was days away from starting a new job in Indiana with less than a week left on the job at the Broward County Sheriff’s Office when he was hit and killed.

Defense attorneys argued the crash was caused by Nimtz, and said the blood test that led to the DUI charges was not accurate and Johnson was suffering from a concussion.

After two weeks of testimony, body camera and other evidence was presented, attorneys gave their closing arguments Thursday.

“This case is about making somebody pay, somebody has to pay because somebody died. But that’s not the law, and I’ll tell you why you should find my client not guilty,” defense attorney Zeljka Bozanic said.

“We know that Mr. Johnson’s failure to yield to the police lights, the flashing lights and sirens, if he had just yielded to the lights and sirens, we wouldn’t be here,” assistant state attorney Ross Weiner said.

Closing arguments were underway in the trial of a driver accused of DUI manslaughter in a crash that killed a BSO deputy. NBC 6’s Heather Walker reports

If Johnson is convicted on the most serious charges he could face as many as 34 years in prison.