O.C. Doctor Gets 18 to Life in Crash That Killed Couple : Courts: Prominent AIDS specialist was under influence of drugs and alcohol. Judge says sentencing was difficult.

A Laguna Beach physician who had consumed five kinds of drugs, along with alcohol, when his car crashed into a Mission Viejo family and killed the parents was sentenced Friday to 18 years to life in prison.

Ronald Joseph Allen, 33, who specialized in AIDS treatment and was noted for accepting patients other doctors had turned away, was convicted Dec. 28 of second-degree murder. He had been drinking and had taken five prescription drugs on July 11, 1993, when he crashed into another car, killing Mark and Noreen Minzey. Their daughter, Karie Minzey, now 13, was critically injured, and two other passengers in their car were hurt.

“This was no accident,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Molko, who argued for the maximum sentence of 33 years to life. “This was murder.”

Orange County Superior Court Judge David O. Carter addressed Allen directly as he described the difficulty of deciding the fate of a promising young doctor who made the decision to use drugs and alcohol and to drive that night.

“This court must balance the lives you’ve saved and helped and hope it washes some way against the lives you took. It’s not a balance,” Carter said before issuing his sentence. The judge added that he hoped Allen could find a way to help AIDS patients in prison.

Allen, who earlier in the day apologized to survivors and declared his admiration for Karie Minzey, clutched a Bible and nodded slowly at the judge as he was sentenced.

“I want to say that I’m sorry, which is all I can say,” said Allen, wearing dark slacks and an open-collared white shirt. Allen said he was so moved when Karie Minzey testified at the trial that she did not hate him that he went to church at the jail that night.

“For that girl to sit in the courtroom and look at me . . . and say I don’t hate this man . . . to me, that’s Jesus,” he said. “She’s a beautiful child.”

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Allen was one of the few drivers in Orange County to be charged and convicted of second-degree murder for taking lives while driving under the influence. Prosecutors argued his medical background and two prior arrests on suspicion of driving under the influence made him aware of the risks of getting behind the wheel while impaired.

One of Allen’s attorneys said the conviction will be appealed.

The sentencing followed half a day of moving testimony from some of the victims, their friends and family, as well as supporters seeking leniency for Allen. The ordeal has been so traumatic for all sides that only Noreen Minzey’s father could bear the strain of attending the hearing. But he was not up to speaking.

Mark Minzey, 38, and Noreen Minzey, 33, were returning from watching Karie play in a softball game when their car was struck head-on by Allen’s rented car on Santiago Canyon Road near Orange. Karie Minzey suffered critical head injuries and broken bones. Passenger Jackie Rodriguez, now 25, suffered burns on her legs and Danielle Rodriguez, 12, suffered a broken arm.

Allen bowed his head as the Minzeys’ friends described the lingering toll from the crash, which left Karie Minzey without a spleen and with plates holding her skull together, and her two friends with lasting injuries of their own.

Karie Minzey, who now lives in Georgia with her 17-year-old sister, Shelbie, and an aunt, sent a letter to the court describing the pain of losing her parents.

“Each holiday, especially Christmas, my heart hurts because they will not be there again,” said the letter, read in court by family friend Linda Wilson. But, Karie Minzey wrote, “I do not hate the man who hit us in the wreck. I just do not want this to happen again.”

The mother of the other two injured passengers said the crash haunted her.

“In one instant, that joy had turned to shock and sorrow,” said Rebecca Rodriguez. Danielle Rodriguez said the crash “changed my life forever.”

The Rodriguezes said later the sentence wasn’t long enough.

“We wish it would have been 33 (years), of course. But it wasn’t,” Rebecca Rodriguez said.

A separate, civil lawsuit filed by the Rodriguezes and Minzey daughters against Allen and the car rental company goes to trial May 15.

Former AIDS patients of Allen’s and some of his associates urged leniency, arguing that Allen showed unusual generosity and had desperately needed medical talents. One woman with HIV said Allen accepted her after other doctors turned her away and that he persuaded her to stay in college.

“I put him on a pedestal next to God,” she said.

Allen’s sister described her brother, who is single, as the pride of the family, a golden child whose bright youth gave way in adulthood to suicidal mood swings later diagnosed as mental illness. Allen’s lawyers said the disorder contributed to his decision to get behind the wheel. They also contended he was depressed the day of the crash because his father had died that day.

Barbara Allen said her family for years ignored her brother’s troubling symptoms.

Turning to face the Rodriguez family seated in the front row, Barbara Allen said, “I’m so very sincerely sorry. And my family is so very sincerely sorry.”

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The sentencing came after Carter rejected a request for a new trial from the defense lawyers, who argued that alleged juror misconduct tainted the verdict. Attorney Alan J. Crivaro said a holdout juror claimed she finally agreed to the murder conviction after she read a newspaper article about a fatal drunk-driving case in Orange County in which the defendant was not sent to jail.

Carter ruled the juror violated no judge’s instruction and said the incident was not serious enough to merit a new trial.

Crivaro said after the sentencing that the alleged misconduct would be one of the grounds for appeal.