Drunk Driver Gets 4-Year Term in Vehicle-Manslaughter Case

A 24-year-old man was sentenced Monday to four years in state prison for vehicular manslaughter in the death of a Huntington Beach woman in an alcohol-related traffic accident on New Year’s morning of 1986.

Superior Court Judge Myron S. Brown imposed the sentence on Borzoi Bahrami, despite his attorney’s plea for probation because Bahrami is now legally blind as a result of the accident and had no prior arrest record.

Bahrami had pleaded guilty March 2 to vehicular manslaughter and drunk driving. He was accused of causing the death of Debra Harvey, 26, who was thrown from her car after colliding with Bahrami’s at 4 a.m. at Atlanta Avenue and Newland Street in Huntington Beach.

Bahrami and two passengers in his car were seriously hurt. Bahrami also suffered liver and spleen injuries, according to his attorney, Jerome J. Goldfein.

Bahrami, who was hospitalized for several weeks after the accident, was not arrested until March 26, 1987, after he failed to appear in court on the charges stemming from the accident. He was arrested at a Costa Mesa motel after police received an anonymous tip.

Goldfein said he had asked the judge to give his client probation “because he is 24 years old, had no prior record and is legally blind.”

Bahrami earlier had served 35 days at the California Institution for Men at Chino, where he was given a psychiatric evaluation and a recommendation for probation.

But Brown, noting the seriousness of the crime, instead ordered the prison sentence. Bahrami, who could be eligible for parole in two years, was arrested immediately after sentencing.