Camp Pendleton
A college student was convicted Friday of three counts of involuntary vehicular manslaughter in the deaths of three children he struck in a bicycle lane at Camp Pendleton.
Charles M. Smith, 20, was found guilty of all three misdemeanor counts after a U.S. District Court jury deliberated two hours.
Smith could receive a maximum of three years in federal prison and a $3,000 fine when U.S. Magistrate Edward Infante sentences him on March 14.
Assistant U.S. Atty. Larry Burns argued that Smith was driving about 40 m.p.h. in a 25-m.p.h. zone when he struck the children and the mother of two of them.
Charmaine Ostergaard, 6, her 4-year-old brother Jeremiah, and Annabell Bortonel Reyes, 6, were killed, and Deborah Ostergaard, 24, was seriously injured.
The MiraCosta College student lived on the base with his mother and stepfather, a Navy chief petty officer.
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