HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) - A drunken driver who caused a fiery Southern California crash that killed three Las Vegas teenagers on spring break was sentenced Thursday to 51 years to life in prison.
Bani Duarte, 29, of San Clemente was sentenced in Orange County. She was convicted last year of second-degree murder in the March 2018 crash on the scenic Pacific Coast Highway.
After a night of drinking, Duarte’s speeding car rear-ended the teenagers’ car, which was stopped at a red light on the highway in Huntington Beach, prosecutors said.
That car was launched through an intersection, smashed into a pole and burst into flames.
Seventeen-year-old Brooke Hawley, 18-year-old Dylan Mack and 17-year-old Albert “A.J.” Rossi were pronounced dead at the scene, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.
They were students at Centennial High School in Las Vegas.
Another teenager survived with burns and a concussion.
Duarte was convicted last fall of three felony counts of murder and one felony count of driving under the influence of alcohol causing bodily injury.
Relatives gave emotional victim impact statements during her sentencing hearing, according to the DA’s office.
“The impact will not be over for me until the day I take my last breath,” said Rhonda Hawley, Brooke Hawley’s mother.
“Ms. Duarte, you will be able to see your children through glass in jail,” said Albert J. Rossi, father of Albert Rossi. “If I want to see my son, I have to go to a cemetery.”
At the time of the crash, Duarte was driving with a blood-alcohol level of .30 - nearly four times the legal limit, the DA’s office said.
She had a previous conviction for driving under the influence in 2016 and lost her license for a year, prosecutors said.
“There was no reason for these three young people to have lost their lives to a repeat drunk driver,” District Attorney Todd Spitzer said. “This was not an accident. It was a choice - and it was a deadly one.”
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