Man Pleads Guilty in Fatal Crash

A Simi Valley man pleaded guilty Tuesday to gross vehicular manslaughter in the July 2001 death of a fourth-year medical student in the San Fernando Valley.

Antuan Hakobian, 27, faces 14 years and eight months in state prison as part of a plea agreement reached Tuesday. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Hoff ordered Hakobian to return to court Jan. 17 for sentencing.

Hakobian, a former car broker, has been held at North County Correctional Facility in Saugus in lieu of $1.7 million bail since his arrest on the day of the accident.

Authorities said Hakobian’s BMW slammed into a Nissan Sentra driven by Sukey Egger, 32, on July 9, 2001, on Sepulveda Boulevard near Valley Meadow Road in Sherman Oaks.

Egger, the mother of two children, died of her injuries a few days later at UCLA Medical Center, where she worked.

She held a doctorate in clinical psychology and was co-author of an article in the Western Journal of Medicine in 2000 on how physicians can help teens living in violent communities change their lives.

Besides the manslaughter count, Hakobian also pleaded guilty to driving under the influence and causing great bodily harm to his two passengers, and to resisting an officer by force during an earlier drunk-driving arrest, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard F. Walmark.

When Hakobian was arrested in the San Fernando Valley car crash, he was awaiting trial in Malibu on separate charges of drunk driving and possession of marijuana in an October 2000 case, Walmark said.