A 30-year-old man who crashed his friend’s car into a Mission Viejo home while driving drunk, killing a sleeping resident, was sentenced Friday to 15 years to life in state prison.
Jurors in December convicted Kourosh Keshmiri of Mission Viejo of second-degree murder in the 2013 death of 60-year-old Kenneth Jackson.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Walker argued in the trial that Keshmiri was repeatedly warned about the dangers of drinking and driving and was so reckless the night he killed Jackson that the only just verdict is second-degree murder.
Jackson went to bed to watch TV and was sleeping when Keshmiri crashed his friend’s 2005 Cadillac CTS-V into the victim’s bedroom.
Jackson’s friend of 20 years, Mark Martinez, recalled how his friend became a “brother” to him when, “I lost my brother many years ago.”
The two were in a motorcycle club and Jackson would often help Martinez work on his bike at Jackson’s San Clemente shop, he said.
Jackson was also “really instrumental in the 12-step program of Narcotics Anonymous,” Martinez said.
“He helped a lot of people get clean and find a new way to live,” Martinez said. “I hate to think of how many people won’t find that recovery now.”
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 calculated that his blood-alcohol content must have been about .19 or .20, more than twice the legal limit of 0.08 percent, Walker said. A blood draw nearly three hours after the collision showed his blood-alcohol level at .15, 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.
— City News Service