A judge orders Shanna Jane West to pay restitution to a woman and her two daughters hurt in a 2000 fatal accident.
By BRIDGET HALL GRUMET
Published April 1, 2003
DADE CITY - Shanna Jane West sat quietly in the courtroom Monday afternoon, her young face calm and sad. She was back to pay for what she had done.
She's already paying with time - 14 years in prison - for the night she drove high on GHB, slammed into an oncoming car in Land O'Lakes and killed Dade City humanitarian Barbara Mercer.
Now the 23-year-old is responsible for the medical costs of the other three people she injured in the Nov. 21, 2000, wreck.
Circuit Judge Wayne Cobb ordered West on Monday to pay $7,188 in restitution to Maria Florez and her daughters, Virginia and Crystal Martinez.
West sat in the jury box and looked over the restitution order with her attorney, public defender Willie Pura. She nodded and raised no objections.
The lien will follow West until she pays it off.
"If she ever sells property or wins the lottery, they would have to enforce it that way," prosecutor Manny Garcia said after the hearing.
Mercer was riding with Florez and her daughters the night of the crash. They were going to a School Board meeting in Land O'Lakes, where Virginia Martinez, then 14, would receive a college scholarship.
But they never made it. West had downed two shots of Arizona Iced Tea laced with GHB, which also is known as a "date rape drug." She got behind the wheel and passed out somewhere on U.S. 41, veering head-on into Florez's car.
West pleaded guilty last fall to manslaughter by culpable negligence. In January she was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
But the story didn't end there.
West wrote to the judge a couple of weeks after her sentencing, saying she was talking to an attorney about withdrawing her guilty plea, although she didn't say why.
She asked Cobb in February to let her out of jail while her appeal is in the works.
But even her own attorney at the time, public defender Kirk Campbell, admitted at a Feb. 21 hearing that he didn't see any grounds for challenging her guilty plea.
She remains behind bars, although her appeal still is pending.
- Bridget Hall Grumet covers crime in east Pasco. She can be reached at (352) 521-5757 ext. 23 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6108, then 23. Her e-mail address is bhall@sptimes.com
[Last modified April 1, 2003, 05:26:38]
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