A 30-year-old man “test driving” his friend’s Cadillac with a “Corvette engine” while drunk ended up in a “Dukes of Hazzard”-style airborne crash into a Mission Viejo home, killing a slumbering resident, a prosecutor told jurors Wednesday.
Kourosh Keshmiri of Mission Viejo is charged with second-degree murder in the Dec. 29, 2013, crash that killed 60-year-old Kenneth Jackson in his bedroom.
Jackson “went to his room to watch TV and go to bed,” said Senior Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Walker. At 3 a.m., a 2005 Cadillac CTS-V slammed into the victim’s bedroom, Walker said.
Keshmiri’s evening started with a visit to Irvine with a friend to hang out at a hookah lounge, Walker said. His friend said in the three hours they were there he did not see him drinking, and the defendant was under court orders not to drink at that time because of prior drunk driving arrests and convictions, Walker said.
The two went to a restaurant to eat, but his friend said he still hadn’t seen the defendant drinking there, Walker said. When they got home to Mission Viejo, Keshmiri asked his friend if he could take his car out for a “test drive,” and because he did not appear to be drunk, his friend said OK, Walker added.
But as Keshmiri sped around the neighborhood, his friend asked him to stop and when he wouldn’t, “He closed his eyes and braced for impact,” Walker said.
The vehicle’s “data event recorder” indicated that the car, which has a “400 horsepower rocket” under the hood, was going 86 mph when Keshmiri tried but failed to make a wide turn downhill, Walker said. Skid marks in front of the house indicate the vehicle may have slowed to 58 mph, Walker said.
“But the defendant was still going so fast the embankment served as a ramp and he went airborne,” Walker said. “He flew ‘Dukes of Hazzard’-style into (the home’s) glass window.”
Experts are expected to testify his blood-alcohol content must have been about .19 or .20, more than twice the legal limit of .08 percent, Walker said. A blood draw nearly three hours after the collision showed his blood- alcohol level at .15, Walker said.
Keshmiri was charged with murder because he received multiple warnings before the crash that if he were involved in a deadly DUI accident he would face a charge of murder instead of manslaughter, Walker said.
Keshmiri pleaded guilty Aug. 26, 2010, to driving drunk and was ordered to participate in a three-month program that included classes on the dangers of drinking and driving and hearing from a victim of a deadly DUI crash about how it affected her life, Walker said.
Keshmiri was arrested again June 6, 2013, for drunk driving and a judge ordered the accused to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings as a condition of staying out of custody before trial, Walker said.
Keshmiri’s attorney, John Barnett, declined to make an opening statement in the trial Wednesday morning.
–City News Service