SNAPSHOT A GLIMPSE OF THE SYSTEM : Much-Ticketed Driver Gets 133 Days in Friend’s Death

Within a year of getting his driver’s license, 18-year-old Fernando (Ferdie) Niebla had accumulated seven traffic tickets, from running stop signs to speeding.

His eighth violation cost him less than two months in jail--and the life of a friend.

Niebla and four buddies were out late, cruising Boyle Heights’ Brooklyn Avenue in December, 1989, when his car hit a power pole. Sixteen-year-old Thomas Vargas was flung through a passenger window and into the pole, splitting his skull, an autopsy would show.

Niebla and his buddies said later that they were on their way to get hamburgers when another car forced them off the road. The police alleged that there was no other car, that Niebla was drunk, with a blood-alcohol level of 0.12%, and had crashed while on the way to buy more beer.

He was charged with vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence, bodily injury to more than one person--another of his friends suffered a broken collarbone in the crash--and driving under the influence of alcohol. The vehicular manslaughter charge alone carries a maximum of four years in state prison.

On May 14, Superior Court Judge Richard Neidorf, who said he believed Niebla’s version of events, cleared him of vehicular manslaughter but found him guilty of drunk driving. Neidorf sentenced him to probation and 133 days in jail.

With credit for the week he served before posting bail, plus all other time credits afforded inmates in Los Angeles, Niebla would be out in about 50 days.

“The defendant had no record,” Neidorf said in explaining the sentence. “The death of his best friend was punishment enough.”