A woman described by prosecutors as an obsessed fan of the late “Fast and Furious” star Paul Walker was acquitted Tuesday of all charges stemming from a crash in Rancho Santa Margarita that killed a 16-year- old passenger and seriously injured two other teenage girls.
Shanzeh Sajid, 23, had been charged with gross vehicular manslaughter and two counts of reckless driving causing great bodily injury stemming from the Dec. 7, 2013, crash, which occurred about 11 p.m. on Melinda Road near Santa Margarita Parkway.
Jurors, who began deliberating Monday and reached a verdict Tuesday morning, also rejected lesser charges of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter and reckless driving without a specified injury.
Deputy District Attorney Whitney Bokosky argued during the trial that Sajid was speeding recklessly when she slammed a Mercedes-Benz with bald tires into a tree, killing Kiana Yazdihan and leaving one of the other two victims with paralysis on her left side.
Defense attorney Rick Vallejo denied that Sajid was speeding. He said none of the passengers in the car initially told investigators the driver had been speeding, but over the years “the story has evolved.”
“The only evidence you’re going to hear that she was speeding are going to come from the girls in that car, who were drinking, doing drugs, are angry and have a motive to lie,” Vallejo said at the onset of the trial.
Vallejo also argued the car’s brakes may have been damaged when the vehicle skidded over an object before hitting the tree, but Bokosky said a prosecution expert testified the brake line was broken in the collision.
Yazdihan’s family members cried when the verdict was read.
“It was tough for the family because they felt like she (Sajid) didn’t care at all,” the prosecutor said.
Vallejo said it had been raining and temperatures dipped to 29 the night of the crash, and the car was headed downhill on a hilly road. He argued that Sajid, who had been working and was sober at the time of the crash, was doing a favor for her friends by driving them home, because they had been drinking and doing drugs at a house party.
“On December 7th, the only person trying to do a good deed and the right thing was that young woman right there,” he told jurors, pointing to his client.
–City News Service