Driver found guilty in death of Boulder cyclist Magnus White, 17. Family says full justice was denied.

Did Yeva Smilianska get behind the wheel knowingly impaired, causing her to recklessly endanger lives on the road and kill 17-year-old up-and-coming cycling champion Magnus White? That was the central question a jury deliberated after a five-day trial at the Boulder County Justice Center this week. After about seven hours, the verdict came back: guilty.

For the White family, however, the trial brought little solace. After enduring the unimaginable loss of their young son, they watched as critical questions about what really happened that day went unanswered in court.

“These past 20 months have been incredibly painful — pain that could have been significantly reduced had the state troopers handled the scene and investigation with the diligence it required,” the family said in a statement. “The district attorney’s office did an extraordinary job recovering the case and securing a guilty verdict despite the investigative failures of the state patrol.”

Smilianska, 24, was charged with vehicular homicide, with an additional, lesser charge of careless driving causing death. It was not disputed that she killed White in the July 2023 crash — she eventually admitted to falling asleep while driving on the Diagonal Highway. The trial focused on whether she did so recklessly, with disregard for the risk given her condition after drinking until 6 a.m. and sleeping three to five hours, or simply did so carelessly, without proper attention to the road.

Contradictions around her alcohol use and sleep — compounded by her use of two prescription drugs for bipolar disorder — raised red flags about her condition at the time of the crash.

A major issue, according to the family, was that Smilianska was never tested for drugs or alcohol at the scene. At least six officials on site testified or reported that they saw no evidence of intoxication and did not ask her to submit to a test.

However, the Boulder County district attorney’s investigation later revealed that Smilianska, then working as a bartender at 3’s Bar in Longmont, had been drinking until at least 6 a.m. The crash occurred at 12:30 p.m. that day. In a text message a month prior, she told a friend that she had made a big mistake by driving heavily intoxicated, according to evidence presented during cross-examination by Deputy District Attorney Trish Mittelstadt.

A close friend of the White family said that shortly after doctors declared Magnus brain dead, Colorado State Patrol Trooper Heidi Jewett — who later testified in court — told the family the driver was a Ukrainian refugee and that her car had a malfunction.

“That was her lead,” the friend told Boulder Reporting Lab, recalling his surprise that the trooper seemed to take the driver’s account at face value. “I recall how certain she was that it was a mechanical failure.”

The White family was similarly concerned about the way the trooper presented the incident.

“We thought she would tell us they were investigating the driver who killed our son, and instead we were told the driver did everything right,” the family wrote in a statement. “It was incredibly hurtful, and left us wondering if Magnus’s death was even being taken seriously.”

A mechanical inspection later confirmed there was no car malfunction. The truth, prosecutors said, is that Smilianska fell asleep, not becoming conscious until after the car hit a gate.

Prosecutors also discovered that, contrary to her statements about fleeing the war, Smilianska had been a legal U.S. resident since 2017 — well before the war in Ukraine began. It’s unclear whether she had returned to Ukraine at the time of the war, though she has family in Florida.

Both the false claim that Smilianska was a war refugee and the assertion of a mechanical failure became central narratives in media coverage.

Though this was not officially charged as a DUI case — since no test was conducted and she was not considered to be intoxicated at the scene — much of the trial centered on how much she drank, and when. Prosecutors argued that she had consumed so much alcohol and had so little sleep that it was reckless for her to drive at all.

The White family said that, regardless of the verdict, justice has not been served. They argued the full story was not allowed by the judge to be presented at trial, and that without drug and alcohol testing the potential penalties were limited. If she had been convicted of reckless driving while under the influence, the maximum jail time would have been up to 12 years. In this case, the maximum penalty is six years. Jail time is not mandatory.

“Eyewitnesses said the driver had been swerving onto the shoulder multiple times before hitting Magnus,” the family said. “She admitted she had been drinking. She said she blacked out and didn’t know what happened. And yet, not a single officer requested a sobriety test or a blood draw. They even let the driver remove items from the scene. Critical evidence was lost forever. She didn’t fall asleep, she blacked out behind the wheel. And still, she was never drug tested. But Magnus was.”

During the trial, prosecutors referenced a video showing Smilianska and a friend singing karaoke at a house the morning before the crash. The family says the video shows a mirror with a white powdery substance — believed to be cocaine — visible on the table. After the video had been submitted to the jury, someone noticed the substance. The judge instructed that the video be cropped to remove the drug from view, ruling that without proof she consumed it, it could unfairly bias jurors.

A source told Boulder Reporting Lab that text messages between Smilianska and a known drug dealer were excluded from the trial, after a friend of Smilianska’s claimed in a sworn statement that the cocaine was hers.

A key piece of evidence was a text message Smilianska sent to a friend, Neddy Cooper, at 12:11 p.m. the day of the accident, saying she was falling asleep and heading home. She had just left Cooper’s house, stopped for food and coffee at McDonald’s, and by 12:30 had fallen asleep in her car on the Diagonal Highway — reportedly swerving twice and correcting herself before finally “passing out” and driving full speed into Magnus, who was in the shoulder, then crashing into a fence nearly 300 feet beyond.

Following the tragedy, the White family launched a foundation in their son’s name called The White Line, raising funds to lobby for safer roads and stricter penalties for reckless and careless driving.

After the verdict, the family’s statement called for action.

“Our goal is to drive conversations and push for real action,” they said. “Laws must evolve. Protocols must be strengthened. Law enforcement training must reflect the gravity of what’s at stake. A mandatory blood draw must be the standard, not the option, in all fatal and serious injury crashes.”