The woman who hit and killed 17-year-old cycling phenom Magnus White in Boulder may be placed in a halfway house only six months into her four-year sentence.

On Thursday, White’s family received a letter from the Colorado Department of Corrections Victim Service’s Unit that Yeva Smilianska is “being referred, according to Colorado Law, for consideration of placement in a Community Corrections program (halfway house).”

The letter, obtained by The Denver Gazette, said Smilianska could then progress to an intensive supervision program — meaning she would be electronically monitored in the community and would no longer need to physically reside in the halfway house.

Boulder District Court Judge Dea Marie Lindsey sentenced the 24-year-old Smilianska to four years in prison on a count of vehicular homicide on June 13 of this year in connection to White’s death on the morning of July 29, 2023.

“We just finished this, we just got our heads above water after two years of fighting and dealing with this,” said White’s father, Michael White, on Friday. “To get this letter out of the blue, with her going to Community Corrections is disappointing, angering, furious; it’s all of those words.”

Following a five-day trial in April, the jury found Smilianska acted recklessly and consciously disregarded others’ safety when she chose to drive while sleep-deprived around 12 p.m. on July 29, striking and killing White around 12:30 p.m. At the time, Magnus, a champion cyclist from Boulder, was practicing for a trip to Glasgow to participate in the World Mountain Bike Championships for the U.S. National Team.

Smilianska, an immigrant from Ukraine, faced up to six years for the charge, with Lindsey deciding on a shorter sentence with a three-year mandatory parole because the defendant did not have a prior criminal history and her consumption of alcohol cannot be proven. 

Though witnesses testified during the trial that Smilianska swerved twice before the crash and acted strangely calm following the death, officers at the scene did not perform a field sobriety test on her or a blood test later.

Officers believed the suspect to be sober and initially suggested charges of careless driving resulting in death. The White family called it a systemic failure.

During the trial, District Attorney Michael Dougherty provided various photos and videos of Smilianska drinking alcohol hours before the crash.

The defense, led by Timur Kishinevsky, argued that Smilianska was not drunk at the time of the crash – just tired due to receiving only around five hours of sleep. If she was intoxicated, the six trained officers would have picked up on it, according to Kishinevsky.

The family maintained that Smilianska should serve the entirety of her four-year sentence.

“When she was sent to prison in August, I could finally take a deep breath,” White’s mother, Jill White, said Friday. “We were just starting to think about our lives and how Magnus is fitting into them in the current way.”

Jill White added that the family had just put up a Christmas tree on Tuesday, Magnus’s birthday, for the first time in two years. The holiday was his favorite.

Then just two days after, they received the email from the Colorado Department of Corrections about Smilianska, Jill White said.

The Boulder County Community Corrections Board met on June 10 to evaluate the case, according to the family. The board reviewed around 250 pages of victim impact statements, as well as those from the defendant and the family.

Colorado Statute 18-1.3-301 states that an inmate with a referral from the court or the Department of Corrections can be assessed for the community corrections program. For every sentence to state prison, a defendant is eligible for community corrections 16 months prior to his or her parole eligibility — which would be December for Smilianska.

Ultimately, the board voted, 9-3, that Smilianska is eligible for a community corrections sentence. Because the minimum sentence for the crime is technically probation, the case qualified for the program.

That vote took place just three days before Smilianska was sentenced on vehicular homicide charges for White’s killing.

Though the judge opted for a sentence in prison, the eligibility for community corrections still stands once the window opens next month.

“Despite the White family having a protection order against the defendant, the board voted to bring the defendant even closer in proximity to the family,” the family wrote in a letter to the board following the June 10 vote. “The Boulder halfway house is just 1/4 mile away from Magnus’ younger brother’s high school. How can this be justified?”

“Although it has been the law in Colorado for many years, this process is re-traumatizing for victim families,” Dougherty, the district attorney, told The Denver Gazette on Friday. “In essence, it creates a sentence reconsideration board that can reverse or reduce a judge’s decision.”

Dougherty added that “we need more certainty in sentencing” and “the community corrections process should not be completely separate or earlier than the process for parole.”

Smilianska is not up for parole until April 2027, with a mandatory release in April 2029.

The community corrections referral still needs to be approved, and the White family has submitted a victim impact statement fighting it.

The Denver Gazette reached out to the corrections department but did not immediately hear back.

“We’re once again, at the mercy of, essentially, a jury,” Jill White said. “How many times do you have to keep reliving and restating the case to hope that they decide the same way that the jury did and the judge did? It wasn’t through a retrial, it wasn’t through an appeal. It’s just so confusing.”