Driver Who Killed Cyclist Magnus White Considered For Halfway House Months Into 4 Year Sentence

The driver who struck and killed young rising cycling champion Magnus White is being considered for a halfway house just months into her four-year prison sentence.

Yeva Smilianska was sentenced to four years in prison in June of this year.

In a letter from the Colorado Department of Corrections (DOC), and received last Friday,  Jill and Michael White, Magnus’ parents, were informed that Smilianska was being referred, per Colorado law, for placement in a halfway house — a residential facility where inmates are transferred before being fully released into their communities.

The letter goes on to state that people placed in a halfway house may eventually be given the opportunity to serve the remaining portion of their sentence outside of the halfway house, so long as they are electronically monitored.

It’s standard protocol under Colorado law, which states offenders who were not convicted of a violent crime can be considered for placement at a Community Corrections center 16 months prior to their parole eligibility date.

Jill and Michael White believe the consideration for Community Corrections is emblematic of a larger issue within Colorado’s criminal justice system.

“It sends a message to the drivers… you can lie for two years, deny accountability and responsibility, and you’ll get off with a very light, easy joke of a sentence,” Michael said. “The state continues to just keep on letting us down. Letting the community down.”

Timur Kishinvesky, the attorney who represented Smilianska during her trial, had little to say regarding this other than, as his client did, blame everyone else except himself and his client:

“Unfortunately, I will not be providing any additional information as I do not want the continued pattern of misinformation and misconceptions that have occurred throughout the pendency of this case by the media.” Kishinvesky seems to forget that the “misconceptions”,  or as we call them, “lies”, came from himself and his client, not the media.  The lies that Smilianska continued to propagate from the beginning that caused even more pain for the Whites included, but are far from limited to:

• Claiming she did not pass out while driving and striking Magnus White, killing him and was not under the influence of anything.   
• Claimed that the cause of the crash was not her, but that the steering went out on her car.  Once that was proven to be a lie, only then did she change her mind about passing out. 
• She lied about how much she drank, prior to driving, in addition to illegal drugs and prescription drugs she had taken prior to killing Magnus. She had been up all night drinking with a friend, and taking selfies of doing shots with a mirror of lines of white powder in front of her. 
• Lied about being a victim-Ukrainian refuge coming into the US in 2022, only to be confronted with the evidence in trial that she had been in the country 5 years prior, in 2017, to when she claimed to have come to the US.

Timur Kishinvesky should realize that the only pattern of misinformation and misconceptions that have occurred throughout the pendency of this case, have come from, not the media, but from his client and himself. 

“To be hit with this news yesterday was just like, it just knocked us down,” said Jill. “I came home from work, Michael said there’s some bad news. He told me what the news is. I said, I can’t live here anymore, and I left. I walked out. And I wasn’t walking out of my family. I was just like, I can’t. I was walking out of the state. I was like, I’m done.”

The update in Smilianska’s case came during the same week when Magnus would have turned 20 years old. His parents had a birthday cake they never ate, with candles that burned until they naturally went out.

“No one to blow them out,” Michael said.

The two also decorated a Christmas tree — complete with ornaments that were zip tied to each branch — underneath Magnus’ ghost bike along the Diagonal Highway in Boulder.

“So everyone who passes by knows there’s a boy that loves Christmas, and he’s not here, but his parents are remembering him and how much joy he brought us during that season,” Jill said. “We were trying to rebuild, and he loved Christmas — like, loved Christmas — and it was the first year we felt like we had the strength to put up a Christmas tree in honor of him.”

Now, the Whites feel as though they have been thrown back into the fight for what they consider justice when it comes to their son.

“Cruel is the word, I feel. It’s very cruel,” Jill said.

“I mean, we’re back fighting again so quickly,” Michael added.

Although routine, the news of such a consideration by the Community Corrections Board is still jarring for 20th Judicial District Attorney Michael Dougherty, who prosecuted Smilianska’s case.

“This has been in the law in Colorado for as long as I can remember. That doesn’t mean it’s right,” Dougherty said. “In a lot of ways, I view it as a sentence reconsideration board. In other words, a judge imposed a sentence of four years in state prison, and here we are just a few months later talking about the possibility of release by a Community Corrections Board.”

Dougherty believes Colorado needs to enact more certainty in sentencing.

“We had the trial in April, and the defendant was then sentenced to four years in state prison, and here we are, and it’s November. That’s not how the system should work, and this case really highlights that failure,” Dougherty said. “This case shows the re-traumatization for victims families and the injustice that can result.”

Smilianska, who remains housed at the La Vista Correctional Facility in Pueblo, is scheduled for a mandatory release from prison on April 1, 2029. She becomes eligible for parole on April 1, 2027.

“We were only aware of her eligible parole date, which was April 2027, and so like, okay, we have almost two years of, we don’t have to think it. She’s not in our head,” Michael explained. “It’s the system. The system is giving convicted felon of a vehicular homicide every opportunity to get out and not be held accountable for their crime.”

And now, the Jill and Michael White have less than a month to prepare victim impact statements for the board to consider.