{"id":229157,"date":"2026-04-13T01:22:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T01:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/229157\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T01:22:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T01:22:14","slug":"miami-de-rueben-bain-cited-for-careless-driving-in-connection-to-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/229157\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami DE Rueben Bain Cited For Careless Driving In Connection To Death"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just 11 days from away from the potential start of his NFL career, Miami (FL) defensive end Rueben Bain Jr.<\/a> is facing some controversy that has potential to hurt his draft status. Oliver Connolly of The Read Optional broke the story<\/a> today that, in 2024, Bain was \u201ccited for careless driving\u201d in an accident that left a young woman in a coma for three months before her eventual passing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>During his sophomore season, Bain reportedly was driving at 4am with four passengers in his car. The victim was a 22-year-old female college student from Georgia visiting Miami over spring break \u2014 a statement from the victim\u2019s family in response to Connolly\u2019s request for comment expressed that they \u201care not seeking public attention\u201d at this time, so the victim will remain unnamed here, though her name is available at the source link.<\/p>\n

According to police crash records<\/a> (via Armando Salguero of OutKick), Bain\u2019s vehicle struck another car before then colliding with the \u201cconcrete barriers on both sides of the highway<\/a>.\u201d The victim \u201csuffered incapacitating injuries and was rushed to the Ryder Trauma Center.\u201d Comatose, she failed to regain consciousness before dying a little under three months later. A second passenger also sustained injuries from the crash and ended up hospitalized. The police report for the crash lists that Bain \u201coperated his vehicle in a careless or negligent manner\u201d but that his condition was \u201capparently normal.\u201d The report is marked to show that there was no suspected use of drugs or alcohol and that no tests to determine such use were performed at the time.<\/p>\n

The victim\u2019s family created a GoFundMe page to help with \u201cthe financial strain\u201d put on the victim\u2019s father, who missed a significant amount of time at work to be by his daughter\u2019s side. Per Connolly, \u201cno finding of criminal liability\u201d was made in connection with the crash or the victim\u2019s death, and \u201cthe careless driving charge against Bain was dismissed by a court approximately two weeks before\u201d the victim\u2019s passing. According to Trey Wallace, also at OutKick, the charge was dismissed<\/a> because of a \u201cdefective citation\u201d after Bain entered a not guilty plea.<\/p>\n

At the time of this writing, Bain is viewed as one of a group of three pass rushers seen as the consensus top prospects at the position, including Ohio State\u2019s Arvell Reese<\/a> and Texas Tech\u2019s David Bailey<\/a>. Draft projections have him mostly going in the top 10 picks of the 2026 NFL Draft, and certainly not lasting into the teens if he is still on the board at No. 11 overall.<\/p>\n

Connolly\u2019s story presents quotes from multiple team executives and other sources claiming they \u201cfeel like (Bain was) not transparent\u201d with them or that they \u201care concerned about multiple incidents.\u201d Wallace\u2019s report contains more information on a second careless driving citation that occurred in October 2025, though this case was also dismissed because of a defective citation. Connolly even draws parallels to the historic slide of offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil<\/a>, who was projected by some to be the No. 1 pick in 2016 but ended up falling to 13th overall after videos were leaked minutes before the draft showing him smoking from a bong.<\/p>\n

Others in the media don\u2019t seem to be reacting with the same level of concern for Bain\u2019s draft stock. In the wake of Connolly breaking the story, Sports Illustrated\u2019s Albert Breer added that \u201cteams have been aware<\/a> of this case for a long, long time\u201d and that \u201ca lawsuit associated with the case\u2026was settled in Miami.\u201d The plaintiff of the settled lawsuit<\/a> was the driver of the car Bain made contact with before crashing. Jonathan Jones<\/a> of NFL on CBS claimed that every team, except one, that he had \u201cspoken with\u2026(had) been satisfied with Bain\u2019s explanation\u201d of events and consider \u201cthe matter handled<\/a>.\u201d In addition to the victim\u2019s family\u2019s request that their privacy be honored, their response to Connolly\u2019s request for comment called her passing \u201cthe result of a tragic accident\u201d and \u201c(wished) Mr. Bain the best as he continues his life and career.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to say at this point whether or not this information, which is seemingly new to the media but known by the teams in range to draft Bain, will affect his draft stock. Breer and Jones\u2019 comments seem to indicate that, if this issue were going to hurt his draft position, it would have done so already. While the loss of life of the victim is tragic, there doesn\u2019t appear to be any lingering ill will following Bain from the family most affected by it. It\u2019s worth keeping an eye out, though, to see if any teams within range of Bain decide to take him off their board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just 11 days from away from the potential start of his NFL career, Miami (FL) defensive end Rueben…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[54521,123,125,124,6005],"class_list":["post-229157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-2026-nfl-draft","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-rueben-bain-jr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}