Drunk Driver Gets 2 Years in Fatal Collision

A Palmdale man with two prior drunk driving convictions who killed a high school student in a drunken crash last year was sentenced to two years in state prison Tuesday, despite an emotional plea from the victim’s mother for a longer term.

“With Katerra gone, there’s a big hole in my life,” Palmdale resident Yvonne Floyd said tearfully of her 16-year-old daughter, who died Aug. 21. “Go for the maximum sentence. Do this so he won’t devastate someone else’s family,” she told the judge.

But Lancaster Superior Court Judge Haig Kehiayan accepted a plea bargain adopted by prosecutors in the case, sentencing Jeffrey M. Brown, 31, to a reduced felony charge of vehicular manslaughter and fining him $5,000.

“This just goes to prove Mothers Against Drunk Driving has a long way to go,” said Becky Bearden, the head of the Antelope Valley chapter of the group, which advocates tougher sentences in drunk driving cases. Outside the court, Bearden joined Floyd in objecting to the sentence.

According to court records, Brown’s car was traveling 55 to 60 m.p.h. when it ran a red light at a newly installed traffic signal in east Palmdale on Aug. 20, broadsiding the Floyd family’s car as it was making a left turn. Katerra, a straight-A student at Palmdale High School, died the next day.

Later tests showed Brown had a blood alcohol level of .13%. The legal limit is .08%. A probation report said he admitted drinking four or five beers in the hours prior to the crash. Katerra’s father, Russell, the driver of the family’s car, and her mother also were injured.

Prosecutors originally charged Brown with gross vehicular manslaughter, a more serious felony count that carries a possible sentence of four to 10 years in state prison. Brown also was charged with two other felony counts for drunk driving.

But in a plea bargain struck Dec. 10, prosecutors agreed to dismiss all three of those charges in exchange for Brown’s no-contest plea to an additional but lesser charge of vehicular manslaughter. The sentencing range for that offense is 16 months, two years or four years in prison.

The prosecutors who accepted the plea bargain could not be reached for comment Tuesday. And Deputy Dist. Atty. Steve Ogden, who handled the case in court Tuesday, said only that the plea bargain was “appropriate.” The judge did not elaborate on his decision.

Brown’s probation report said he was cited for drunk driving in Los Angeles in September, 1985, and convicted in December of that year. He was then cited again in July, 1986, and convicted of misdemeanor drunk driving in October of that year, getting a fine and suspended driver’s license.