Ex-Officer Guilty of Manslaughter in Freeway Crash : Courts: Off-duty sheriff’s sergeant, now retired, was drunk when his auto slammed into disabled vehicle.

A former Los Angeles County sheriff’s sergeant was convicted Thursday of gross vehicular manslaughter in a fatal drunk driving crash last August on the San Gabriel River Freeway in the City of Industry.

Dennis Max Howell, a 21-year veteran who retired after the incident, will face a maximum state prison term of 10 years when he is sentenced June 28 in Pomona Superior Court.

However, Deputy Dist. Atty. Donald S. Jakubowski, who prosecuted the case, said he would probably recommend a sentence of six years because Howell has no prior convictions.

“I think his conduct was outrageous and he’s a disgrace to the Sheriff’s Department,” Jakubowski said. “But under the legal guidelines, that’s probably the appropriate sentence.”

Howell, 47, who lives in Claremont with his wife and two children, could not be reached for comment. His attorney had acknowledged that Howell was legally drunk when the cars collided, but that the sergeant merely exercised poor judgment, not gross negligence.

A Pomona Superior Court jury deliberated about 1 1/2 days before finding Howell guilty of driving with a blood-alcohol level of 0.23%--almost three times the legal limit--when he slammed into a disabled car on the shoulder of the freeway.

Howell, who CHP officers estimated had been speeding at 81 m.p.h., escaped with minor injuries. But the driver of the other car, Santiago Herrera, a 28-year-old baker from Lakewood, was killed in a fiery explosion.

The crash occurred shortly before 3:45 a.m. last Aug. 24, after Howell left a Santa Fe Springs restaurant where he had been celebrating his transfer from traffic sergeant in the Pico Rivera station to the department’s new drug-testing program in downtown Los Angeles.

Much of the weeklong trial hinged on contradictory testimony by six of Howell’s fellow deputies, prompting a review of the case by the sheriff’s Internal Affairs Bureau.

Two deputies who spent about 45 minutes talking with Howell before he drove off that night testified that he showed no signs of intoxication. But the same two deputies privately conceded that they believed Howell was drunk and tried to prevent him from driving, according to testimony by two sergeants.

Howell testified that he could not recall how many beers he drank, but that he did not think he was drunk when he got behind the wheel.