Teen driver gets 2 years for crash that killed Tongan royals

[sasquatch]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/25/BA0IROBMR.DTL
A Redwood City woman who killed two members of the Tongan royal family and their driver in a freeway crash last year is going back behind bars after she was sentenced Friday to two years in county jail.

Edith Delgado, 19, wept as the sentence was read, and she left San Mateo County Superior Court surrounded by family members, who declined to comment.

Delgado has already served about a year in jail as she awaited trial and is now free on bail. She is scheduled to surrender Sept. 1 to serve the remainder of her sentence. With credit for time served, she will be facing seven more months in jail. That could be reduced to about four or five months with credit for good behavior.

Judge John Runde also sentenced Delgado to three years' probation at Friday's hearing in Redwood City. Her driver's license had earlier been revoked for three years.

"The judge flat-out said through his ruling that the time she's already done doesn't adequately resolve the case," prosecutor Aaron Fitzgerald said. "We hope the sentence deters her in the future from engaging in deadly, reckless behavior."

Delgado's attorney, Randy Moore, was displeased.

"I respect the judge, but I don't like the sentence," Moore said outside the courthouse. "I don't think it serves anybody's interest at all that this 19-year-old girl who already spent a year in jail ... has to go back there."

Delgado could have been sentenced to a maximum of three years in county jail for the July 5, 2006, deaths of Tongan Prince Tu'ipelehake, 55, his wife, Princess Kaimana Aleamotu'a Tuku'aho, 46, and their driver, East Palo Alto resident Vinisia Hefa, 36.

A jury convicted Delgado on June 14 of three misdemeanor counts of vehicular manslaughter. The panel acquitted her of felony charges that could have sent her to state prison for as long as eight years.

Fitzgerald argued that Delgado should be sentenced to 21/2 years. Moore told the judge that a year in jail already served - the maximum for an individual misdemeanor count - was sufficient.

Runde ultimately went with the middle-ground recommendation of the probation department, saying Delgado has shown contrition and pointing out that she had no previous criminal record.

"The probation report suggests that this was an instance of bad judgment," Runde said. "That's one side of the ledger. The other side of the equation is the very serious harm" that Delgado's actions caused.

The three victims died when Delgado's Ford Mustang sideswiped the royal couple's Ford Explorer near Marsh Road on Highway 101 in Menlo Park, causing the sport utility vehicle to roll over several times.

Prosecutors said Delgado had been racing a Cadillac Escalade at speeds of at least 80 mph, using the freeway as "her playground."

Her lawyer maintained there was no race - the Escalade was never found - and that Delgado had been going slower than 80. Jurors found insufficient proof of racing, Frank Johnson III, the jury foreman, said after the trial.

The deaths triggered an outpouring of grief from the more than 8,000 Tongans living in the Bay Area. Prince Tu'ipelehake, hailed as the "People's Prince" for his political reform efforts, was visiting Tongan expatriates to gauge public opinion on the nation's political system when he was killed.

"Words cannot express how much of a loss we still feel, even after a year," the princess' cousin, Amelia Tupou Tonga, said at Delgado's sentencing hearing. "And so our family suffers, our country suffers, because we lost a great prince. But we are forgiving people, and all we want today is justice."

Luisa Leveni, an official at the Tongan Consulate in San Francisco, said her government understands the judge's decision.

"In our hearts, we can't forget the good prince and princess," Leveni said. "But the decision has been made, and we respect it."

The prince's two sons, Osaiasi Tu'ipulotu, 34, and Vakafuhu Tu'ifua, 12, say they have forgiven Delgado and place the majority of the blame for their father's death on Ford Motor Co., maker of the Explorer, said Richard Alexander, an attorney representing the sons in a lawsuit against the automaker. They say Ford knew the Explorer was prone to rollovers.

Delgado, who was not hurt in the crash, did not dispute that she had sideswiped the vehicle. The criminal case hinged on whether her conduct amounted to gross negligence, acting in a way that a reasonable person would know created a high risk of death or great bodily injury. The jury needed to make that finding to convict her of the felony charges.

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I think this girl is only getting this much time because of who her accident killed, I'm sure if it was some shlub like me she wouldn't of even got 3-6 months(which is probably too much anyway considering this was an accident).