Report Flap Delays Rausch Sentence

A Probation Department report recommended Friday that 18-year-old Jason Rausch of Newport Beach receive the maximum sentence--and then some--for a crash that killed one classmate, wounded two others and left his community reeling.

But Superior Court Judge Everett Dickey, who was poised to sentence Rausch, called the report inadequate because it was based solely on the police report of the crash.

“If that’s all that’s going to be relied on is a police report, what’s the point of having a trial?” Dickey asked. Probation officer Susan Nash recommended that Rausch receive a year in jail and three months’ probation, although the maximum he faces under law is one year in jail. Nash told the judge she based her recommendation both on the police record and Rausch’s “attitude” during an interview toward the crime. She did not elaborate.

Rausch, now a student at Orange Coast College, was driving a 1989 Chevrolet Blazer filled with 10 Newport Harbor High School classmates last May 23 when it flipped and crashed on a sharp curve in Newport Beach. He had not been drinking.

Eighteen-year-old Donny Bridgman, owner of the Blazer, was killed, and two passengers suffered critical, potentially permanent brain damage. One of the injured teens, Amanda Arthur, was in a coma for nearly three months but eventually awoke and became a media sensation when she was named the school’s homecoming queen last fall.

In December, Dickey reduced the manslaughter charge against Rausch from a felony to a misdemeanor, sparing him from a possible six years in prison. In February, the judge found Rausch guilty of the misdemeanor but ruled that he was not guilty of gross negligence nor of two misdemeanor counts of reckless driving causing bodily injury.

But the probation report, which a judge uses as a guide to decide the sentence, included none of those facts, Dickey said.

“That seems to me to be unacceptable,” Dickey said. “It seems to be the most important thing is what the defendant was convicted of. Obviously, there is a huge change in many situations.”

Dickey indicated that he might throw out the report on Monday. He would then have the option of ordering a new one or imposing sentence without one.

Dickey previously has indicated that he does not believe Rausch would benefit from time in jail.

Nash testified that it is the policy of the Orange County Probation Department to use police reports as the basis for its pre-sentencing reports in addition to interviews with the defendant and others.

She said the Rausch case was considered “high profile” by the department, and that her report was reviewed and approved by superiors “at all stages.”

Nash recommended the maximum sentence, she said, because “One person died and two people ended up in comas, and additional injuries were sustained.”

Defense attorney Jennifer Keller assailed the report as “biased” and “worthless,” because it included none of the testimony from the preliminary hearing or trial, which was significantly less damaging to Rausch than the police report.

“I find it simply incomprehensible that she would have ignored the sworn testimony,” Keller said. “It would appear to me that she really didn’t care. It was a situation of, ‘Don’t bother me with the facts.’ ”

Still, Nash testified Friday that even if she had been aware of some of the later facts of the case, such as the determination that Rausch was neither negligent nor reckless, she would not have changed her recommendation.

Nash’s supervisor, Harry Mash, said the department normally bases its recommendations on police reports without problem. He defended the Rausch report and said he had reviewed it.