Jury Convicts Drunk Driver in Crash That Killed Woman

Seven months after Michelle Pagan was killed by a drunk driver who was rushing his pregnant wife to the hospital early Christmas morning, a jury Tuesday convicted him of vehicular manslaughter.

The panel agreed with his defense lawyer that Roberto Perez was not guilty of the more serious crime of gross vehicular manslaughter, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, six more years than the maximum term he now faces.

“He wasn’t a drunken guy going out of a bar to drive home. He wasn’t reckless. He was trying to do something for his family,” said juror Lamar Wood, 58, of North Hollywood. “He was also irresponsible. He could have called 911 or gone to a neighbor. He didn’t try the other options at all.”

As a clerk read the verdict, Perez looked straight ahead. Pagan’s relatives, who filled the center of the front row in Superior Court, sat stone-faced. In a corner of the room, the defendant’s wife sobbed.

After having Christmas Eve dinner with a friend, Pagan, 26, decided to drive to her Woodland Hills home about 2:30 a.m. to finish wrapping presents before a big family gathering planned for the following day.

Perez, also 26, had celebrated Christmas Eve with his family in their Sun Valley home, drinking spiked punch and eating, and had gone to sleep. His wife woke him sometime after 2 a.m., saying she was in labor.

As he crossed the Valley in his 1979 Chevrolet station wagon on his way to Valley Presbyterian Hospital, he ran red lights while flashing his car’s hazard lights and honking the horn. Authorities said that he was speeding down Victory Boulevard at more than 50 mph and that his blood-alcohol level was 0.13%, much higher than 0.08%, legally considered the level of intoxication in California.

The light was red at 3:15 a.m. when his car crossed Van Nuys Boulevard and smashed into Pagan’s Honda, dragging her car 150 feet. Paramedics pronounced her dead in the street.

William Pagan, her 62-year-old father, said the verdict Tuesday made him “both happy and sad, because both families have suffered so much.

“I feel very bad for him, a family man with no criminal record. But at a critical moment in his life he made a very big mistake, and he will have to pay for it,” Pagan said. “He should use that time that he will be in prison to reflect and ask Michelle for forgiveness.”

Perez did not wish to speak to reporters, instead staying in the courtroom while his lawyer and wife addressed the media.

His wife said she thought the jurors gave her family “neither a victory nor a defeat. They were just. We knew he had to pay something, we just didn’t want him to be found guilty of everything.”

Defense attorney Francisco Zavala said his client has felt great remorse and has known that he would be punished--Perez had said so even as he waited for police to arrive Christmas morning.

“He will never be able to forgive himself,” he said. “His worst punishment is what he’s given himself, not what the jury gave him.”

Perez is scheduled to be sentenced next month. He could face between 16 months and four years in prison. In addition to vehicular manslaughter, he was convicted of driving under the influence and of injuring Pagan in a drunk-driving accident.

Zavala said he will try to persuade Superior Court Judge Darlene Schempp to reduce the vehicular manslaughter charge to a misdemeanor, which would mean a maximum sentence of one year in jail.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Shari Silverman said she respects the jury’s verdict but believes Perez is guilty of the more serious charge of gross vehicular manslaughter.

“I argued what I believe. The defendant’s driving was outrageous. He drove through red lights, speeding, without slowing down,” Silverman said. “But I guess the jury saw it otherwise. It’s up to them to decide.”