Drunken Driver Gets 13-Year Term in Fatal Accident

A Palmdale man who was driving drunk when his car slammed into a family’s van in 1991, killing one man and seriously injuring six other people, has been sentenced to 13 years in state prison for gross vehicular manslaughter after spending nearly a year as a fugitive.

Lancaster Superior Court Judge Thomas Stoever imposed the maximum sentence on Jeffrey Wolak, 32, who was captured in early December in Rialto in San Bernardino County, where authorities said he had been living under an assumed name. A spokeswoman for Mothers Against Drunk Driving said Wolak had two prior drunk-driving convictions.

Wolak would have been sentenced to eight years in state prison on Jan. 6, 1992, under a plea bargain in which he pleaded no contest to a manslaughter charge. But because Wolak fled that hearing, Stoever was not bound by the earlier arrangement at Wednesday’s sentencing.

Authorities said Wolak, driving a car with no headlights on, ran a stop sign in Palmdale on Oct. 6, 1991, and broadsided a van with eight members of a family heading to dinner.

Becky Bearden of Mothers Against Drunk Driving said Wolak had been arrested on suspicion of drunk driving a few days earlier.

Yvonne and Peter Bagnall of Palmdale, one of their two children and three relatives visiting from England were seriously injured. Yvonne Bagnall’s father, who was also visiting from London, was killed.