Plant City woman gets 67 years for 2nd fatal drunk driving crash

Yahoo

3 days ago

TAMPA — The Plant City woman who for the second time in her life admitted driving drunk and causing a crash that killed someone should serve 67 years in prison, a judge ruled Friday.
Jennifer Carvajal wept and buried her face behind her long black locks throughout a three-hour sentencing hearing. She apologized repeatedly to the family of Pedro Carbajal, her cousin who was killed in the crash off Interstate 4, and two others who were seriously injured.
'No matter how many sorrys I say to each of you, or even him, I could never forgive myself,' Carvajal said.
Hillsborough Circuit Judge G. Gregory Green said he struggled to comprehend how Carvajal, 28, for the second in her life could be accused of the same deadly crime.
'It is almost as if instead of taking every step to avoid putting yourself in that situation again, you took steps to ensure that it happened,' Green told Carvajal. 'And that is incomprehensible for this court.'
The sentence dwarfed the five-year term Carvajal previously served the first time she was convicted of DUI manslaughter.
In that case, and on Friday, too, judges heard testimony about Carvajal's horrific childhood, which included sexual abuse at the hands of male relatives.
The abuse only came to light after Carvajal, at age 9, was diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease, a social worker testified. She never received substantial mental health treatment for what was later pegged as post traumatic stress disorder and depression. At age 11, she was caught drinking beer in school. She contemplated suicide and was known to harm herself with broken glass.
This time around, though, there was little notion that the horrors of Carvajal's past should ensure anything but a lengthy prison sentence.
'Two people have lost their lives at the hands of Jennifer Carvajal,' Assistant State Attorney Dawn Hart said in court. 'This community is not safe if Miss Carvajal is ever allowed back in society.'
A packed courtroom heard the details of what led up to the crash from one of the survivors.
Lexcia Gonzalez was Pedro Carbajal's girlfriend. They had a son named Julian.
On the witness stand, she said she knew Jennifer Carvajal, but not well. She knew she had been to prison.
On the night of April 24, 2021, the three of them met up for a family gathering at Pedro's grandfather's home in Plant City. Another cousin, Grady Ramirez, was there too. Late that night, they left in Gonzalez's car, a silver Hyundai Elantra.
They first went to the Twilight Zone Lounge, a liquor store near the Hillsborough County line. They bought a bottle of Hennessey cognac.
They later went to a Circle K store and bought Polar Pops to mix the liquor. They spent the evening drinking, hanging out at a Waffle House, alternating between the Polar Pops and taking swigs directly from the Hennessey bottle.
Late that night, they went to another Circle K to use a restroom. While they were there, Carvajal asked Gonzalez if she could drive.
'I kind of ignored it the first time,' Gonzalez testified. 'She asked again.'
When they left, Gonzalez was the front passenger. The two men sat in the back seat. Carvajal drove.
They headed toward Ybor City. As they moved to get onto Interstate 4, Gonzalez noticed Carvajal having trouble steering.
On the highway, she pressed the gas. Gonzalez watched her use her phone to take a SnapChat video of the Speedometer, showing the car topping 100 mph.
Blue lights came on behind them. Gonzalez told Carvajal to slow down.
'She started panicking,' Gonzalez said. 'And saying that she didn't want to go back to jail.'
Carvajal turned the wheel hard. The car went into a ditch, then up an embankment, then over a fence into the parking lot of the Gator Ford auto dealership. It overturned, smashed into a truck and knocked down a concrete pole and a palm tree.
Gonzalez blacked out. When she awoke, she was on the pavement. She felt a burning pain in her body. Both her thighs were broken.
Pedro Carbajal lay on a patch of grass bleeding from his head, his legs pinned beneath the car's crumpled metal.
Jennifer Carvajal crawled out of the wreckage and went to him. She tried to pull him out and began to cry, Gonzalez said.
She told Gonzalez: Tell them you were driving.
She walked to a fence line that bordered the interstate. A road ranger who'd responded to the crash and two bystanders encountered her there.
'I'm on papers,' the ranger heard her say. 'I have a curfew. I'm not even supposed to be driving.'
She said she needed to leave. Soon, though, Florida Highway Patrol troopers arrived. They noticed bruising on Carvajal's left shoulder extending down toward her waist. The driver's seat belt in the car was extended; none of the other belts had been used.
An FDLE analyst determined that Carvajal's blood alcohol content at the time of the crash was between .10 and .14, above the .08 limit at which the state presumes impairment.
A decade ago, Carvajal was accused of causing the death of a man named Keith Allen Davis. He was delivering copies of the Tampa Tribune early one morning in February 2014.
As the sun rose, he moved his black Toyota Echo onto North Alexander Street. Carvajal at that same moment sped at 55 mph through a red light in an SUV, plowing into his car. Davis was declared dead at a hospital. Carvajal was days away from her 17th birthday when that happened.
This is a developing story. Check back with TampaBay.com for updates.