Man Guilty of Manslaughter in Fatal Crash

A Beverly Hills man with eight drunk-driving convictions under his belt narrowly escaped a murder conviction Wednesday for a 1998 fatal accident, when a single holdout juror forced the panel to accept conviction of the lesser charge of manslaughter instead.

Johnny Castro, 37, faces a maximum of 10 years in prison, compared with the 15-to-life sentence he would have faced if convicted of murder. He will be sentenced next month.

“It’s not enough,” Zhilla Koosh, the victim’s mother, said outside the courtroom, her face red from crying. “We were hoping for murder.”

The verdict, reached after nearly four days of deliberations, was an unexpected result for a trial that had centered on the issue of whether the defendant was driving.

Castro’s lawyer, Larry Boyle, argued that another man who the defendant met at a bar was behind the wheel and fled after the accident. He called the defendant’s brother and his wife, as well as a passerby who saw two people in Castro’s car, as witnesses to corroborate the defense.

Deputy Dist. Atty. John Asari, contending that the defendant was in fact driving, pointed out injuries and damage to the car and offered the testimony of an off-duty police officer who witnessed the accident. He also outlined Castro’s driving record, arguing that he knew driving drunk was dangerous and didn’t care, making the fatal accident qualify as murder.

One juror, a Northridge woman who declined to give her name, said all but one panelist agreed that Castro was driving.

“We all felt the evidence was there,” she said. “We felt he was guilty. It was just one juror.”

After days of discussion, tension mounted and the panel moved on to the issue of whether the crime was murder or manslaughter, she said.

The holdout said he would only agree to convict if the others--who said it was murder--settled on manslaughter, the female juror said. She said she agreed to avoid having a hung jury.

“I feel absolutely horrible,” she said. “He had made up his mind. There was nothing that would have made a difference.”

After the verdict, the female juror talked to the victim’s parents and the prosecutor, sobbing and hugging Zhilla Koosh.

On Jan. 11, 1998, Castro’s white Nissan 300ZX rear-ended a U-Haul trailer attached to a blue Jeep Wrangler on the Golden State Freeway, about a mile south of the Hasley Canyon Road offramp. Witnesses estimated the vehicle was traveling nearly 100 mph, authorities said.

The Jeep flipped, fatally injuring Mahdad Koosh, 22, of Westlake Village.

A blood test showed Castro’s blood-alcohol content was at least 0.17%, more than twice the .08% legal limit.

Castro had been heading to West Hollywood, where he lived at the time, after drinking at a Bakersfield bar.

According to Koosh’s family, Koosh had just landed an engineering job at NASA in Huntington Beach. He went on a solo cross-country drive before starting the job, and was in the last leg of the tour when he was killed.

Asari said he thought the holdout was in the position of many jurors, “who find themselves sitting on the hot seat and can’t pull the trigger.”

The victim’s father maintained that Castro should have faced the harsher penalty.

“I think he’s a menace to society,” said Dan Koosh, surrounded by family and friends outside the courtroom.

Boyle said he still believes his client is innocent and is planning an appeal.

He said Castro and his family were stunned and crushed by the jury’s verdict.

“He thought he was going to go home,” Boyle said.