Delgado convicted of vehicular manslaughter [1]
Friday, June 15, 2007 - 18:21. Updated on Tuesday, July 21, 2015 - 10:14.
A teenage driver, Edith Delgado was convicted of three misdemeanor counts of vehicular manslaughter by a San Mateo County jury on Thursday. She will be sentenced on August 24.
Edith Delgado, of Redwood City, California, was driving a car that sideswiped a sport utility vehicle carrying Prince Tu'ipelehake, 55, his wife, Princess Kaimana Aleamotu'a Tuku'aho, 46 and their driver, Vinisia Hefa, 36, of East Palo Alto, California.
The prosecutors said Delgado, now 19, was racing another driver and hit the Ford Explorer while driving between 85 mph (136 kph) and 100 mph (160 kph) on Highway 101 in Menlo Park, California, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of San Francisco, last July 5.
The crash killed three occupants of the Ford Explorer.
The San Mateo County jury found Delgado not guilty of felony charges of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and instead found her guilty of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence.
AP reported that if convicted of the felonies, she would have faced up to eight years in prison. She now only faces a maximum of three years in county jail. A sentencing hearing was set for August 24.
Delgado has remained in jail since her arrest shortly after the crash because she was unable to post her $1 million bail. After the verdicts were announced, Judge John Runde lowered the bail to $40,000, and her family planned to post bail later Thursday, said defence attorney Randy Moore.