A motorist facing a murder trial in the drunk driving death of a taxi driver near Old Town pleaded guilty Nov. 30 to gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and hit and run.
Deputy District Attorney Lucille Yturralde said Amy Marie St. John, 44, faces a maximum sentence of 17 years and eight months in state prison. She remains in the Las Colinas Women’s Detention Facility without bail.
The prosecutor said St. John was driving while intoxicated on Interstate 5 near Old Town on April 19, 2014, at 2:25 a.m. and struck the cab driven by Anteneh Minassie, 42. He got out of his vehicle but was killed when another car struck his cab, and he was run over by other cars.
St. John is from Phoenix but was staying at a motel on Rosecrans Street and drank alcohol at a Midway Drive bar that night. Yturralde said St. John’s blood alcohol level was .27, three times the legal limit.
Nov. 30 was to be the start of her estimated three-week trial on a second-degree murder charge, but she decided to plead guilty to gross vehicular manslaughter. Had she been convicted of murder, she could have received a life sentence.
San Diego Superior Court Judge Louis Hanoian set sentencing for Jan. 22. Yturralde said the sentence is a “stipulated term” and that St. John has agreed to accept that sentence. A murder charge was dropped.
Minassie was a father of three and was an immigrant from Ethiopia who came to the United States in 2003 with his family, who lived in the Jamacha neighborhood of San Diego.