Police Report Says Mannes Admitted She Was Drinking : Camarillo: According to arrest record, the convicted drunk driver said she had been consuming alcoholic beverages for two days.

Diane Helen Mannes admitted she had been drinking for two days last weekend when deputies found her drunk in a parked car surrounded by a variety of empty alcoholic beverage containers, said a police report obtained Monday.

Mannes, 39, who served time for a 1989 drunk-driving accident that killed three young men and injured two, sat in Ventura County Jail on Monday awaiting arraignment for the alleged violations of state parole and county probation.

“It appears she had been drinking quite a bit,” said Sheriff’s Sgt. Keith Lazz, reading from the arrest report.

Mannes served about two years in prison for felony drunk-driving in connection with the injuries of two men whom her car hit in the March, 1989, accident on the Conejo Grade.

Despite repeated attempts by the Ventura County district attorney’s office to prosecute her for murder in the deaths of the other three young men, Mannes eventually was allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter and released on five years’ probation.

The terms of her county probation stipulated that she stop drinking and attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

On Saturday, Deputy Timothy Waite reported finding Mannes in the passenger seat of a parked 1993 Geo Metro with a man identified as Richard Romney just after 1:15 a.m. at Pleasant Valley Park in Camarillo.

A breath test showed that Mannes’ blood-alcohol level was .245%--more than three times the legal limit for driving. The car was littered with a 1 1/2-pint bottle of vodka, a three-quart bottle of wine, an empty malt liquor bottle, an empty Coors can and an empty Zima bottle, the report said.

A paper bag containing two empty cans of Club Margaritas lay on the ground outside the passenger door, Waite’s report said.

Asked how much she had drunk, Mannes reportedly said she drank five shot-sized drinks of vodka and told the deputy she was taking several forms of anti-depressant drugs.

Romney then told Waite that Mannes had stopped taking the medication three days earlier, the deputy’s report said.

When Waite asked why she was drinking when probation required her to abstain, she told him that she was using the alcohol to get off the medication because she no longer wanted to take it--and that she had been drinking for two days, the report said.

The report says nothing about whether Romney had been drinking, but it says that Waite warned him not to drive, Lazz said.

Mannes is due to be arraigned Wednesday in Ventura County Superior Court on two alleged violations of probation: that she had consumed alcohol and that she had alcohol in her possession, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Kevin DeNoce.

DeNoce said the judge probably will set June 23 as the hearing date for those charges, the same day Mannes is to face charges that she earlier violated probation by failing to attend AA meetings and forging attendance cards to hide her absences.

Mannes faces up to three years and eight months in state prison for violating the terms of her county probation, DeNoce said.

She also could be sentenced to as much as a year in prison for breaking the parole she was granted after serving time for a felony drunk-driving conviction she received for injuring the two young men, said state parole officer Randy Yamanaka.

Mannes had served about two years and nine months of a three-year parole term when she was arrested Saturday, he said.

Yamanaka said he is reviewing the police report and considering whether to recommend that her parole be revoked.