Driver, 19, Spared Jail in Fatal Newport Beach Crash

Ending a case that tore friendships apart and bitterly divided a community, an Orange County Superior Court judge Wednesday spared 19-year-old Jason Rausch a jail sentence for his role as the speeding driver in a crash that killed a former classmate and left two others with serious brain injuries.

The Newport Harbor High School graduate was instead sentenced to three years probation, a maximum $1,000 fine, restitution to the victims’ families and 250 hours of community service, some of it speaking to youngsters about the dangers of reckless driving.

Judge Everett Dickey, who convicted Rausch of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter in February, said he believed that a jail sentence would serve no purpose other than vengeance in the emotional case.

“The court is convinced that Jason Rausch is truly remorseful and has thought about this and his responsibility for it every day since it happened,” Dickey said. “And he will have to live with it for the rest of his life. He knows it is his friends he hurt.”

Dickey spoke about the responsibility that parents have in keeping close watch on the activities of teenagers like the ones who piled into a Chevrolet Blazer last May 23 with Rausch at the wheel. The vehicle flipped and crashed on a sharp curve on Irvine Avenue, throwing eight teenagers to the pavement. Rausch was the designated driver that night and had not been drinking. But the accident resulted in a fierce legal battle and community debate about his culpability.

Dickey ordered that at least 100 hours of Rausch’s community service sentence be spent “lecturing and talking with other teenage groups who need to have a lesson as to what can happen in an accident like this even if you’re not drinking.”

Killed in the accident was 18-year-old Donny Bridgman, the owner of the Blazer. Amanda Arthur, 18, was left in a coma but awoke 11 weeks later. Arthur, who was eventually named the school’s homecoming queen last fall, suffers from a possibly permanent brain injury. Another student, Danny Townsend, is recovering from a brain injury.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Jim Dutton had requested a six-month jail term for Rausch as well as a suspended driver’s license as a condition of probation. Dickey said that since Rausch’s conviction did not include gross negligence or intoxication, he could not find a section of the legal code that would enable him to suspend the license, which was revoked by the Department of Motor Vehicles in September because of the accident.

Defense attorney Jennifer Keller said that she is not sure how long the revocation will last and that it is an issue that must still be resolved. Keller said she believes that the sentence was “fair and just by a judge who took everything into account.”

But, Keller added: “I don’t think [Rausch] is ever going to be happy. He’s got to live with this for the rest of his life.”

Vickie Bridgman, who had placed photos of her son Donny, both alive and dead, before Rausch on Tuesday, said she does not believe that the sentence is justice, but that it was “what I’ve expected for a very, very long time. It’s not a surprise to me.”

“I don’t think my family got a fair shake,” she said.

Bridgman said that although Rausch went to her after the accident and said he was sorry, she said the visit was made under “false pretenses.” She does not believe that the teenager has ever taken responsibility for the accident, a belief that fuels her bitterness.

“If you admit your mistakes and you live a good life, and you go on and do productive things, then I can forgive you. And that’s what I told him,” she said. “And that’s not what happened.”

Diana Townsend, the mother of Danny Townsend, seemed relieved that the trial was over.

“I’m just glad it’s finished,” she said. “Jason will get on with his life and hopefully Danny will heal and get on with his life.”

Bridgman and Townsend said this week that they still are considering filing civil lawsuits against Rausch.

Nothing could be further from the mind of Chris Maese, the mother of Amanda Arthur, who is preparing to return to Newport Harbor High School on a limited basis beginning Friday to spend at least part of her senior year on campus. Amanda will enroll as a special education student and attend morning classes three times a week for the rest of the year, her mother said.

“Mandy wants desperately to go back to school,” Maese said. “Whether she will actually learn anything I don’t know, but it will be good for her spirits and morale.”

Maese said she believes that Rausch’s sentence was fair.

“I think it’s great,” Maese said. “He has been very supportive of Amanda’s recovery. It was a mistake. We knew he was driving too fast. But we didn’t feel that he should go to jail for it. I think that justice was done. I think the sentence was perfect. I think that talking to teenagers about being a designated driver is important.”

Keller anticipates that it will be difficult emotionally for her client to endure the court-ordered speaking engagements in front of high school students. But she said he is prepared to do it just as he was prepared to serve time in jail if he had to.

“It’s going to be really hard on him,” she said. “It’s a matter of reliving this. It’s not something that he is going to be taking lightly. Every time he goes to a group, he’ll have to steel himself to replay these events, and they are horrifying.”

Rausch’s mother, Leslie Backstrom, testified earlier this week that her son was suicidal after the accident and still suffers nightmares. She said the notoriety of the accident has made it difficult for her son to find a job and the legal proceedings caused him to drop out of at least two college courses.

The accident has provoked prolonged debate about the partying antics of teenagers, an issue that was on the minds of many in court Thursday, including Vickie Bridgman, who said her son “should never have ever been drinking” that night.

An Orange County sheriff’s deputy had stopped the Blazer earlier in the evening and questioned Rausch. The deputy looked in the car and found cans of beer. He made the teenagers pour out the beer then let them leave. The teenagers went to a liquor store and used false identification to buy more beer.

But Bridgman still blames designated driver Rausch for the accident, not her son or anyone else in the Blazer.

“It’s like the pilot of an airplane,” she said. “Do we ever blame the passengers for pilot error?”

Rausch was driving Donny Bridgman’s Blazer for the first time the night of the accident, a fact that the judge said contributed to the accident. The speed that Rausch was going that night has been disputed, with the prosecution contending that he drove at more than 60 mph and the defense maintaining that he was traveling about 44 mph. The road’s speed limit was 35 mph.

Rausch, now a student at Orange Coast College, showed little reaction as the judge imposed the sentence. Eventually, he stood and hugged his mother, then slowly made his way out of the courtroom where he faced a throng of cameras.

Rausch’s father, Manny Hernandez, spoke briefly with reporters and said he hoped that the entire situation would serve as a wake-up call to all parents because “this could happen to your family.”

Times correspondent Hope Hamashige contributed to this story.