{"id":346855,"date":"2026-07-21T03:08:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T03:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/346855\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T03:08:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T03:08:07","slug":"former-south-florida-youth-pastor-charged-with-dui-manslaughter-vehicular-homicide-in-crash-that-killed-8-year-old-daughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/346855\/","title":{"rendered":"Former South Florida youth pastor charged with DUI manslaughter, vehicular homicide in crash that killed 8-year-old daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A former South Florida youth pastor is facing DUI manslaughter and vehicular homicide charges months after investigators say he crashed while driving more than 100 mph, killing his 8-year-old daughter.<\/p>\n<p>Joel Leiniz appeared before a Palm Beach County judge Monday, where he was granted a $150,000 bond.<\/p>\n<p>According to investigators, the crash happened in January when Leiniz was driving 104 mph in a 40 mph zone with his three daughters riding in the back seat. Authorities say the vehicle crashed, fatally injuring his 8-year-old daughter, Zoe. Her two sisters survived.<\/p>\n<p>As a condition of his release, the judge ordered that Leiniz have no contact with his surviving daughters while the criminal case is pending. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.myflfamilies.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">The Florida Department of Children and Families<\/a> will oversee any visitation arrangements.<\/p>\n<p>CBS News Miami visited Leiniz&#8217;s home in Margate on Monday, but no one answered the door. No one was available to comment at his former church, New Covenant Church, where Leiniz previously served as a youth pastor.<\/p>\n<p>The charges come after a series of devastating family tragedies.<\/p>\n<p>About a year before the fatal crash, Leiniz&#8217;s wife, his high school sweetheart, died from metastatic breast cancer. The couple had been raising their three daughters while both worked at the church.<\/p>\n<p>Following the crash, Leiniz told the court he stopped working in order to spend more time with his family.<\/p>\n<p>The criminal case remains ongoing. Authorities have not released additional details about the investigation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former South Florida youth pastor is facing DUI manslaughter and vehicular homicide charges months after investigators say&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2336,5695,28,30,29,807],"class_list":["post-346855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-car-crash","tag-dui","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-south-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346855","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=346855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}