Teen Pleads Guilty In Fatal Car Crash

Drunken Driving Charged in Accident

A Fairfax County teenager pleaded guilty yesterday to involuntary manslaughter in a drunken-driving crash last fall that killed a 59-year-old Leesburg woman.

Under the plea agreement, the state reduced a charge of aggravated manslaughter to involuntary manslaughter, a felony that usually carries a lesser penalty. The 17-year-old also pleaded guilty to a drunken-driving charge, a misdemeanor.

Judge Pamela L. Brooks initially told the former Westfield High School student that she could remain free pending a May 29 sentencing hearing but agreed to Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Adriana Eberle's request to send the girl to the Juvenile Detention Center in Leesburg.

Peter D. Greenspun, the girl's attorney, said he had no objection. Moments later, the teenager was escorted out of the Loudoun County juvenile courtroom.

After the hearing, Greenspun said his client was prepared to lose her freedom yesterday. "The commonwealth's evidence was strong, and she wanted to fully accept responsibility for this horrible tragedy," he said. "That's why we had suggested in discussions [with the girl and her family] that it was appropriate that she go to the detention center" yesterday.

The sentence for the girl, who is a first-time offender, could range from probation to a term in a state juvenile facility, officials said. The Department of Juvenile Justice will determine the length of any sentence, based partly on an assessment of reports on her background, the effect of the death on the victim's family and testimony by witnesses at the hearing. Virginia juvenile courts have control over defendants until they turn 21.

The Washington Post generally does not name juveniles charged with crimes unless they are charged as adults.

The girl had been drinking the night of Sept. 20 before her Ford Escape sport-utility vehicle struck a van driven by Kathleen Becker, police said. The teenager had a blood-alcohol level of 0.17, more than twice the 0.08 legal limit for adults under Virginia law, court records show.

Becker was returning from choir practice at Christ the Redeemer Roman Catholic Church in Sterling to her home in Leesburg, where she lived with her husband and teenage son.

A Virginia state trooper who investigated the crash said the girl was probably traveling 70 mph at the time of the accident.

Through Greenspun, the girl's parents declined to be interviewed yesterday.

Last summer, Greenspun represented another Fairfax girl, also 17, who faced an involuntary manslaughter charge after a high-speed crash on the George Washington Memorial Parkway killed one of her passengers and seriously injured two others. The girl, who was tried as an adult in Arlington County Circuit Court, was sentenced to one year in jail after a jury trial.

Loudoun Commonwealth's Attorney James E. Plowman (R) wanted the defendant in the Leesburg case to be charged as an adult. "We keep trying to send the message" about underage drinking, he said after the crash last fall. "We just hope one day someone's going to listen."

Greenspun argued that the case should remain in juvenile court because his client is immature, has no criminal record and has shown remorse.

Circuit Court Judge Thomas D. Horne decided in January that the case should remain in juvenile court. In an 11-page ruling, he quoted from a psychological report that suggested that the girl's drinking might have been triggered by anger toward her boyfriend.

Horne concluded that the girl's "emotional and social maturity seem to lag behind her chronological age of 17, leaving her more vulnerable to poor decisions when she is attempting to act without adult guidance."

At the end of yesterday's hearing, Brooks asked the girl and her parents whether they had any questions. They said they did not. As a deputy sheriff approached the table where she was sitting, the judge told the girl, "You are remanded to the sheriff. See you on May 29."