Hit-and-run driver who left woman, 18, permanently paralyzed is sentenced to just six months jail time

DAILYMAIL.COM • 49m ago

By ELIOT FORCE, US NEWS REPORTER 22:48 12 Oct 2026, updated 22:49 12 Oct 2026

A Michigan man who fled after striking a teenage girl with his car, leaving her paralyzed and screaming on the ground, has received a measly jail sentence.

Gabriella Golden, 18, was riding her longboard in Hartland, a township northwest of Detroit, on October 22, 2024, when a Mini Cooper crossed the center line and slammed into her.

The driver, identified by police as James Lawrence Shaheen, 40, sped off and hid the damaged Mini Cooper on his property for two days before turning himself in.

When police arrived at the scene of the crash, they said they found Golden ‘screaming in pain on the ground.’

The teenager was rushed to a local hospital, where staff determined she had suffered a spine injury, complications with her carotid artery, a dislocated right shoulder, liver and spleen injuries, and road rash.

The 18-year-old is now paralyzed from the waist down. Her family members told WDIV that if it hadn’t been for Samaritans who heard the crash and called police, the teenager may have died.

Shaheen was charged with failure to stop at the scene of a serious personal injury crash on April 14, 2025, six months after hitting Golden. He was given a $15,000 bond, which he posted before being released on April 22.

The hit-and-run driver was sentenced last week to a minimum of six months in jail followed by 18 months of probation.

Police began investigating Shaheen soon after the crash, as a fender that had come off his car had a part number consistent with a 2002 to 2008 Mini Cooper model. Surveillance footage from a nearby home also showed a Mini Cooper.

Detectives looked into registered owners of the car model in the surrounding area and identified Shaheen as a possible suspect. He lived about two miles from where he hit Golden.

A state trooper visited his home on October 23, a day after the crash, and knocked on the door, but there was no answer. The trooper also only observed a black Buick on the property.

The next day, Shaheen called a police chief with the Green Oak Township Police Department whom he was friends with and asked for advice. The chief told Shaheen to turn himself in.

Shaheen called state police shortly after and said that he had hit someone riding a skateboard with his car and fled because ‘he was scared but was calling because he wanted to do the right thing,’ according to the officer who took the call.

Shaheen had also told his police chief friend that he was petting his dog when he crossed the center line and had a ‘panic attack’ after hitting Golden, which caused him to flee, according to a statement the chief gave to Michigan State Police.

When officers went to Shaheen’s home, they found his Mini Cooper tucked away into a clearing in a wooded area of his property.

The car had blood on its broken windshield and hair stuck in the weather seal between the windshield and the roof, according to a state trooper’s account.

Blood and hair strands were also found embedded in the glass of the windshield, and there was blood on top of the car and near the rear passenger brake light, police said.

Golden’s aunt, Monica Schwartz, told WDIV last year that she believes Shaheen’s actions were ‘calculated’ and that it seemed like he was trying to cover up his crime.

‘I think that he knew people in the police department and wanted to ask advice and see what his options were before doing the right thing,’ Schwartz said.

‘To me, it seems like he had something to hide that night,’ she added.

The aunt also said that Golden was in her first semester of college at the time of the crash and ‘excited to start her new life, and unfortunately that had to change.’

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