Man Enters No Contest Plea in Graduate’s Death

A 20-year-old Garden Grove man pleaded no contest Friday to charges stemming from a drunk-driving accident that killed a Fillmore Senior High School student in June just hours after his graduation.

Justin Neff, who last month had pleaded not guilty to vehicular manslaughter in the death of James Anderson, 18, changed his plea Friday in an appearance before Municipal Court Judge John J. Hunter. In a no contest plea the defendant does not admit guilt, but the plea is the legal equivalent of a guilty plea.

Neff, whose case had been set for a preliminary hearing Monday, pleaded no contest to vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, causing bodily injury while driving under the influence and being under the influence of cocaine and alcohol on the night of the June 15 accident.

Neff’s attorney, Michael Norris of Redondo Beach, said Neff had a probation violation hearing scheduled for Friday and decided to enter the no contest plea in the manslaughter case “to resolve all the cases that were pending at the same time.”

Norris said he did not know whether the plea would result in a lighter sentence for Neff at his scheduled Oct. 19 sentencing before Superior Court Judge Lawrence Storch.

“I have no idea what he will do,” Norris said. “My experience with Judge Storch is I was in his courtroom today, and he handed out some very stiff sentences.”

Neff, who had driven to Fillmore from Garden Grove to attend the June 15 graduation ceremonies, met Anderson at a graduation-night party and agreed to give him a ride home, according to witnesses.

CHP investigators said Neff was drunk the night of the accident and lost control of his sports car on a winding road south of Fillmore. The car smashed into a wooden power pole and was cut in half. Anderson died of severe head injuries.

Neff suffered internal injuries and was

hospitalized at Ventura County Medical Center.

At the time of the accident, Neff had two previous drunk-driving convictions. The first stemmed from an arrest while he was a Fillmore High student in 1988 and the second from an incident last May 13, when he was arrested by a sheriff’s deputy in Fillmore.

Neff was serving three years’ probation on the first conviction, and had pleaded guilty in the second case less than 48 hours before the fatal accident.

On Friday, Municipal Court Judge Bruce Clark sentenced Neff to 18 months for violating probation from the two convictions.

At the Oct. 19 sentencing, Neff could be given up to an additional 10 years in prison on the charges from the June accident, Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Holmes said. Neff could also be fined more than $10,000 and could be ordered to pay additional restitution to Anderson’s survivors, Holmes said.

Norris said defense attorneys are hoping for a lighter sentence.

“I’d like to see him get probation but given everything that’s happened I think that’s unlikely,” Norris said. “Given his age and the fact that he’s never done substantial jail time before, it’s our hope that the Probation Department will recommend that he receive something closer to the low term, which would be four years.”

In February, Neff was jailed briefly in Ventura County Jail after his father, Burkley Neff of Fillmore, swore out a battery complaint alleging that his son struck him in the face and bit his back. Neff was released on $250 bail and his father later dropped the complaint.

In the two years between his drunk-driving convictions, Neff was cited for following too closely, driving with a suspended license, driving without insurance, ignoring a traffic signal, failing to wear a seat belt and twice failing to appear in court.

On Friday, Holmes said he would seek the maximum sentence of 10 years in the Anderson case.

“He pleaded straight up to everything that was charged. Period. No deals,” Holmes said. “No promise has been made to him that we will seek anything less than the absolute maximum.”

Norris said Neff is still under a doctor’s care for head and kidney injuries sustained in the accident, and believes he will receive better medical treatment from the state rather than the county prison system.

In deciding to change Neff’s plea, Norris said, another consideration was the potential length of jail incarceration Neff faced before he would have been brought to trial.

“Justin felt that rather than keep continuing the thing and sit in County Jail for the next six months to a year, that it would be in everybody’s best interest to resolve the thing as early as possible so everybody wouldn’t have to come in and relive the tragedy,” Norris said.