GLENDALE : Man Sentenced for PCP After Crash
A Glendale man whose car collided head-on with another car carrying a 30-year-old Arleta woman and her 10-year-old son has been sentenced to a year in jail, authorities said.
On Dec. 23, Russell Lane Joseph, 36, reportedly traveled straight through the intersection of Roscoe Boulevard and Lennox Avenue in Panorama City while driving in the left-turn lane. He struck a car waiting to make a left turn from the opposite direction.
The woman and her son in the other car were not seriously injured, authorities said.
Officers who responded to the accident said they found Joseph still sitting at the wheel of his 1990 Isuzu. They smelled ether--a PCP ingredient--on his breath and conducted a field sobriety test, which Joseph failed, prosecutors said.
When asked about the collision, Joseph answered, “What accident?” according to a spokesman for the Los Angeles city attorney’s office.
Joseph admitted he had taken PCP and pleaded no contest to one count each of driving under the influence of alcohol and a drug, being under the influence of PCP and in possession of PCP. It was Joseph’s second conviction for driving under the influence of PCP, authorities said.
Van Nuys Municipal Court Commissioner Mitchell Block this week also placed Joseph on four years probation. He was ordered to begin serving his sentence immediately.
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