106-Year Term for Westwood Death-Driver

The man who was convicted of running down nearly 50 pedestrians, killing one, on a crowded Westwood sidewalk last summer was sentenced today to more than 106 years in state prison.

The sentence, imposed by Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Jacqueline L. Weiss, means that Danny Lee Young, 21, of Inglewood must spend at least the next 57 years of his life behind bars.

“In my judgment, the defendant wrote his own punishment at the time he drove that car over the curb on Westwood Boulevard,” Weiss said as she imposed the sentence. “My object is to impose the maximum sentence allowed by law so as to ensure that Danny Lee Young never walks--or drives--our streets again.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. John H. Reid, who prosecuted Young, said the sentence was appropriate, “both in terms of the law and in terms of his (Young’s) conduct.”

Despite testimony that he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, a jury last month found that Young was legally sane last July 27 when he drove his brother’s car down a Westwood Boulevard sidewalk on the eve of the 1984 Olympics.

Young was convicted of one count of first-degree murder in the death of 15-year-old Eileen Deutsch of New York City, and 48 counts of attempted murder. One victim lost a leg, Reid said, while another suffered permanent brain damage.