Local News in Brief : Laguna Beach : Driver Sentenced for Drunk-Driving Death
A 23-year-old Laguna Beach man has been sentenced to one year in jail for killing a college student in a drunk-driving accident last year on Coast Highway.
Thomas Kelsey Taylor, who was sentenced Monday, had pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter and drunk driving with gross negligence in the death of Celia Biasbas, 20. Taylor could have received up to 10 years in prison, Deputy Dist. Atty. Donna L. Crandall said.
Taylor had a blood-alcohol level of 0.22%, more than twice the level state law defines as legally drunk, she said.
Despite calls for the maximum punishment by Biasbas’ family, Orange County Superior Court Judge Myron S. Brown settled on the sentence of one year in Orange County Jail to be followed by three years’ probation, Crandall said. Brown said the decision was an especially hard one.
Four months before her death on Oct. 3, Biasbas had moved from San Francisco to La Jolla. She studied interior design and marketing at San Diego State University.
She was driving home from dinner with her fiance when their car was hit in Laguna Beach.
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