Drunk Driver Is Sentenced to 10 Years in Fatal Crash

A Simi Valley man who caused a fiery Christmas-week crash that took the life of a 26-year-old Thousand Oaks woman received the harshest possible sentence on Tuesday--10 years in prison.

Glen James Paton had been convicted of vehicular manslaughter and felony drunk driving after pleading guilty.

An attorney for 29-year-old Paton had asked Superior Court Judge Charles W. Campbell Jr. to give his client a six-year term.

But Campbell noted the gravity of the offense and the toll it has taken on the family of the victim, Samantha Huntley.

“The judge did what he thought was the proper thing to do,” Deputy Public Defender Joseph P. VillaSana said later.

The sentencing ended an emotional hearing during which Patricia Huntley, the mother of the victim, broke down halfway through a statement she was reading about the impact of the loss of her daughter. Her son finished the statement for her, VillaSana said.

Huntley graduated from North Hollywood High School and received a bachelor’s degree in animal science from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. She had applied for veterinary programs all over the country and was working as a technician at the American Veterinary Hospital in Simi Valley.

On Paton’s behalf, his wife spoke about how her husband seems genuinely remorseful and has learned his lesson, VillaSana said.

“I think he is sorry about what happened. I think he also wants, in some way, to make known his actions and tell other people not to do this,” VillaSana said.

Paton was on three years’ probation for drunk driving at the time of the wreck that killed Huntley.

Authorities said he had a .22 blood-alcohol level--nearly three times the legal limit--when his pickup truck rear-ended Huntley’s car on Tierra Rejada Road just east of the Moorpark Freeway in the early hours of Dec. 22.

In a rare early plea, Paton pleaded guilty just eight days later at his arraignment in Ventura County Municipal Court.

His plea marked the first time a Ventura County defendant in a vehicular-manslaughter case had entered a guilty plea so early, according to officials from Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

VillaSana said he had hoped that because of the early plea--which spared the Huntley family the agony of a drawn-out court case--the judge might give Paton the shorter sentence.

Paton is a construction worker who moved to Simi Valley from Canada three years ago. He is expected to serve about five years. California prison inmates typically serve half their actual sentence with time off for good behavior.