A drunk driver has pleaded guilty to gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated in the death of Justin Callahan, of Ocean Beach.
\nLauren Ashley Freeman, 23, faces up to 11 years and eight months in state prison, said Deputy District Attorney Laura Evans on Monday.
\nCallahan, 35, was killed Feb. 26, 2018 and investigators initially believed he got onto a freeway transition ramp the wrong way from Sunset Cliffs Boulevard and collided with Freeman\u2019s Toyota Camry.
\nThe California Highway Patrol initially thought Callahan was at fault, but they reversed their earlier finding and Freeman was charged in November 2018.
\nA murder charge was dismissed against Freeman by San Diego Superior Court Judge Runston Maino after she pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter. She also pleaded guilty to drunk driving on July 26.
\nSentencing was set for Sept. 27 and Freeman remains in jail without bail.
\nFreeman caused the 1:55 a.m. crash by driving the wrong way on a ramp between Interstate 8 and I-5.
\nCallahan\u2019s brother, Tommy Villafranca, said his brother clocked out at 1:30 a.m. at his job in Chula Vista and was on northbound Interstate 5 while driving home when his car was struck. Evans previously said in court that Freeman\u2019s blood\/alcohol level was .28, which is three times the legal limit.
\nFreeman had been drinking in Ocean Beach before the crash and disregarded four warning signs that she was entering the freeway the wrong way, said Evans. Evans said Freeman previously worked as a server at an East County casino and she was taught a course about serving alcoholic drinks. Evans added that Freeman had a relationship with someone who was later charged with DUI.
\nFreeman\u2019s case was sent last week to Maino\u2019s courtroom for trial which had been set for Aug. 12.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A drunk driver has pleaded guilty to gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated in the death of Justin Callahan, of Ocean Beach. Lauren Ashley Freeman, 23, faces up to 11 years and eight months in state prison, said Deputy District Attorney Laura Evans on Monday. Callahan, 35, was killed Feb. 26, 2018 and investigators initially believed […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":264786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Drunk driver pleads guilty in death of Ocean Beach man","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-293825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-peninsula-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}