Distracted Filipina driver in California sentenced to 6 years

MANILA, Philippines – A Filipino American woman will spend the next 6 years behind bars for killing 23-year-old driver Deanna Mauer in Southern California, USA.

Jorene Ypano Nicolas, 31, was convicted of manslaughter on August 13 and was sentenced by a Southern California judge on September 4. 

Orange County District Attorney said Nicolas was speeding northbound on a California highway on the morning of April 27, 2011, when the incident happened. Mauer was brought to the University of California Irvine Medical Center but was declared brain dead “due to vertebral artery transaction.”

This is Nicolas’ second trial after she was convicted in her first trial that ended in an 11-1 guilty verdict. Nicolas herself said that the victim was responsible for the crash.

According to NBC News, Nicolas’ attorney, Joe Dane, questioned the accuracy of the computer data from the car and suggested Mauer might have caused the crash.

Nicolas is accused of “being distracted and inattentive while driving and failing to notice that the traffic ahead had come to a complete stop.” Nicolas’ lawyer, Eric Lampel, believes it was an accident.

She was sentenced on September 4 to serve 6 years in prison.

“The thought of you not being with your daughter is absolutely killing me every day,” Nicolas was quoted in NBC News as telling the victim’s family. Orange County Superior Court Judge Steven Bromberg, however, didn’t buy it and said Nicolas’ lack of remorse was “deafening.”

Dawn, the mother’s victim, told Nicolas during sentencing, “You’ve not only killed my daughter, you’ve killed me.” The victim’s father Howard added, “The light of my life has gone out, and I fumble in the darkness.”

Six years is the maximum penalty for the manslaughter charge.  – Rappler.com