Drunk Driver Must Pay $8,363 to Victim’s Family

A convicted drunk driver has been ordered to pay $8,363 to the family of the man she killed to compensate them for autopsy costs and psychological counseling.

Renee Reid, a 19-year-old Lakeside woman, was ordered Wednesday to pay Lori Cramer and her son in $50 monthly payments beginning in January.

Reid pleaded no contest to vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence one year ago. Her blood-alcohol level was nearly twice the legal limit July 30, 1991, when her car slammed into Phillip Cramer, 34, of Santee at 70 m.p.h.

The impact catapulted Cramer, who was riding his bicycle on a Lakeside street, to the middle of adjoining Interstate 8.

Municipal Judge Terry J. Knoepp ordered restitution to the family be increased from $500 to $8,362.99. At a hearing last week, Deputy Atty. Gen. Bradley Weinreb said Reid should help Cramer pay funeral costs and the bill sent by the county to transport her husband’s body.

Last week Reid’s attorney, Lee C. Witham, told Knoepp that Reid’s auto insurance company had offered the Cramer family $300,000, including an initial payment of $5,000.

During the hearing, Weinreb said the initial payment would not cover expenses since most of the money would be used to pay legal fees.

Reid was spotlighted by anti-drunk driving groups earlier this year when it was revealed that she had served only 31 days of a one-year jail sentence before she was allowed to return home under an electronic monitoring program.

Knoepp ordered Reid back to jail after the victims and prosecutors complained.

However, due to credits authorized by the California Penal Code, Reid was released from the Las Colinas Jail for women in Santee after serving 197 days.