Driver Convicted of Manslaughter in Hit-and-Run That Killed Youth

A 19-year-old Sherman Oaks man was convicted Monday of felony hit-and-run driving and misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter for driving a friend’s car into two teen-agers, killing one of them, after discovering his own vehicle had been vandalized.

But the Van Nuys Superior Court jury cleared the man, Sean Gauthia, of more serious charges of murder and felony vehicular manslaughter in the April 7 death of Gavin Kalaba, 17, and the injury of Joseph Elder, 17, both of Van Nuys.

The jury deliberated seven days. Judge Jerold A. Krieger set sentencing for Nov. 19.

Kalaba died of head injuries. Elder suffered leg injuries and has undergone extensive surgery, prosecutors said.

The two youths did not vandalize Gauthia’s vehicle, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Leonard Shaffer. But Gauthia, angry over damage to his Jeep, commandeered a friend’s Chevrolet Blazer and deliberately ran into the two youths, Shaffer contended.

“They just happened to be there,” Shaffer said. “There were about 10 or 12 people, and they happened to be the ones standing there.”

But Robert Schwartz, Gauthia’s attorney, told jurors that the collision was an accident. A passenger in the Blazer jerked the steering wheel, causing Gauthia to strike Elder and Kalaba, he argued.

The incident occurred about midnight, after Gauthia and several friends left a party attended by several hundred people at a rented warehouse at Oxnard and Sepulveda streets.

Shaffer said Gauthia saw that the windshield and side and rear windows of his Jeep had been broken. Shaffer contended that the windows were broken by party-goers who thought the Jeep’s occupants had smashed the windows of a Mustang earlier in the evening, Shaffer said.

Shaffer said that it was one of Gauthia’s friends, not Gauthia, who had broken the Mustang windows that sparked the vandalism of Gauthia’s car.

Gauthia is also facing charges in San Fernando Superior Court of raping a woman in concert with friends, Shaffer said.