Jury Weighs Fate of Man Charged in Fatal DUI

As grief-stricken relatives of the dead and the accused watched, a prosecutor repeatedly urged jurors Monday to put aside their emotions and rely on the law to decide the fate of a drunk driver who killed a 26-year-old woman while rushing his pregnant wife to the hospital early Christmas morning.

It doesn’t matter that his wife was in labor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Shari Silverman said during closing arguments in a Van Nuys courtroom. By getting into a car after a night of drinking, then speeding down Victory Boulevard at more than 50 mph and running red lights, Roberto Perez is guilty of gross vehicular manslaughter, Silverman said.

“Traffic lights are there for everyone to obey. There is no pregnancy exception,” Silverman said. “He was driving under the influence and he was deadly. He shouldn’t have gotten into that car.”

She said witnesses saw him driving “like a maniac” with his hazard lights flashing and honking his horn as he plowed through red lights without stopping to see who was coming. His blood-alcohol level was 0.13%, well beyond the legal definition of drunk at 0.08%.

“He was acting like he was an ambulance but he wasn’t driving an ambulance and he wasn’t driving as carefully as an ambulance would,” Silverman said.

Francisco Zavala, who is defending Perez, argued that his client is guilty of mistakes in judgment, of drunk driving and of causing a serious accident, but not of willfully putting people’s lives at risk. Zavala contrasted Perez with a man who gets drunk at a bar and then needlessly drives into afternoon traffic.

He said Perez, who testified in his own defense, had been celebrating Christmas Eve with his family at his Sun Valley home with no intention of driving. He was asleep when his wife went into labor about 2 a.m. When she woke him, he didn’t feel drunk, Zavala said.

As he drove her to Valley Presbyterian Hospital, Zavala said, Perez went no faster than 40 mph and stopped to make sure his path was clear before driving though red lights, contradicting other testimony.

But at Van Nuys and Victory boulevards, Zavala said, the light changed from green to red as Perez checked on his wife through the rear-view mirror. When he turned his gaze back to the light, Perez said, it was too late to stop in time and he tried to swerve to miss Michelle Pagan.

His station wagon plowed into the driver’s side of her compact car, killing her. “Put yourself in his shoes as a husband, as a father. Remember what it was like when your wife was regnant?” Zavala asked. “This accident has already devastated one family. It need not destroy another.”

The jury began deliberations Monday afternoon but did not reach a verdict.

The story woven by the defense angered the victim’s father, William J. Pagan, who watched the trial with his five other children.

“I’m sorry for him. I’m sorry for his family. But he made a big mistake and he has to pay,” said Pagan, 62. “It’s unfair to my daughter to say those things in there, trying to save his neck.”

Pagan sobbed as he spoke of how much he missed Michelle, “an angel” whose grave he visits every day.

As Pagan and his family talked outside the courtroom, Perez sat with his relatives a few feet away. The defendant declined to speak to a reporter.

His wife, Sandra Perez, said she has always wanted to approach the Pagans and give them her condolences, but fears they would reject her.

She said she leaves the verdict in God’s hands but has never truly considered the possibility of a long prison term.

“I have a lot of faith in God,” she said, in tears. “I know he is fair.”