Driver too young to drink charged in Keys’ first DUI crash of 2017

The Florida Keys’ first driving-under-the-influence charge of 2017 was lodged early New Year’s Day against an underage woman who told officers she never had a driver’s license.

Kayla N. Soriano, 19, of Key Largo was driving a borrowed car south on U.S. 1 when she veered off the road and ran over two street signs near mile marker 94.4 around 2 a.m. Sunday, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office reports.

Soriano, an employee of a Key Largo restaurant, was on her way to meet her boyfriend, who works at a Plantation Key restaurant, she told Deputy Orlando Alvarez. Other deputies and Florida Highway Patrol troopers also responded to the crash site. Soriano declined medical treatment.

Damage to the car was estimated at $10,000 while replacing the street signs could cost $2,000, reports say.

“Soriano did admit on multiple occasions that she was drunk,” Alvarez wrote. “Soriano is also only 19 years of age.”

She reportedly failed roadside tests, and breath tests indicated her blood-alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit of .08 percent, his report says.

Soriano carried a Texas identification card but “admitted to never having having a driver’s license issued to her,” Alavarez wrote. She was released from custody Monday pending a Jan. 18 court date.

Relatively few DUI arrests were made in the Keys over the New Year’s weekend. Only four were listed in jail booking logs, two each in the Upper and Lower Keys.