Post by JoannaL on Nov 24, 2019 2:07:21 GMT -5
Texting Driver Convicted of Vehicular Homicide
For the first time in the state of New Jersey – and possibly in the nation – a woman has been convicted of vehicular homicide while texting after a Monmouth County jury found a 50-year-old woman guilty of the charge on Friday, November 22.
Prosecutors said Alexandra Mansonet was distracted by a text concerning dinner plans when she rear-ended another car, causing it to strike 39-year-old Yuwen Wang as she was crossing the street in September 2016. Wang died five days later. Though she was neither drinking nor on drugs, the state declared she might has well have been.
The defendant’s sentencing is scheduled for January 31 and she will remain free until that time. She faces up to 10 years in prison and will have to serve at least 85 percent of her sentence before she is eligible for parole.
Mansonet claimed she had read the text about dinner plans before starting her vehicle and was looking down to turn on her rear defogger when she stuck the other car. But prosecutors insisted the text was marked as “read” a little more than a minute before the crash and though unanswered, the letters “M” and “e” were typed. According to investigators, Mansonet received a text from her sister-in-law asking what sort of food she wanted for dinner. “Cuban, American or Mexican. Pick one,” the text read. Prosecutors argued the “Me” response was the beginning of a longer answer.
Defense attorney Steven Altman told reporters he was disappointed with the verdict, according to the Asbury Park Press. “It’s going to be very difficult for her to deal with the fact that at sentencing, she could possibly be incarcerated for something we are all guilty of on a daily basis,” Altman said, referring to texting and driving and appearing to contradict Mansonet’s claim she was turning on her defogger.
Wang, who had gone for a walk while on a break, flew into the air after she was hit. Witness Joseph Matich testified the woman’s head bounced off the pavement “like a basketball.” She suffered severe brain trauma and died October 3, 2016.
The case was the first in New Jersey to go to trial since New Jersey went “hands free” in 2012, after determining the use of a handheld phone while driving is a reckless act that can form the basis for a vehicular homicide prosecution. Others have been charged under the law, but they resolved their cases with guilty pleas.
Steven Qiu, Wang’s husband, admitted the guilty verdict brings “a lot of comfort” to him and his family and he hopes New Jersey does more to prevent motorists from texting while driving so that his wife did not die in vain. “I hope more people can realize the consequences of texting and driving,” he explained, adding that he and his wife were hoping to start a family and now those dreams have been crushed.
Source: Morgan Phillips, Fox News, November 23, 2019, and WKXW, November 22, 2019.