Posted on 05/18/2009 9:52:52 AM PDT by raccoonradio
A Saugus High School senior is being held on $7,500 bail today after prosecutors allege he drank 10 beers prom night then crashed his car the next morning killing a 67-year-old woman and injuring her daughter.
Jonathan Caruso, 18, pleaded innocent in Lynn District Court today to charges relating to Saturday morning’s tragic crash.
Prosecutor Christina Ronan said police arrived to a horrific scene: “Officers could also hear and see a woman crying in pain,” she said.
Caruso is charged with motor vehicle homicide by reckless operation, drunken driving and a minor transporting alcohol.
The prosecutor requested $20,000 bail, but defense attorney James McCall requested a bail Caruso’s family could afford.
If Caruso posts bail, he is required to wear a monitoring bracelet that will also test for his blood-alcohol level.
Ronan said a young woman believed to be the defendant’s girlfriend said at the scene of the crash: “We killed that person. We want to take full responsibility.”
Ronan also said in court today that Caruso was overheard by police saying at the scene “he should not have been driving after drinking” and that he must have fallen asleep behind the wheel and only remembers crashing into a stop sign.
The prosecutor added that when the defendant was asked how many drinks he had, he told them he was “celebrating prom and drank 10 beers earlier.” Caruso also had a “heavy smell” of alcohol at the crash scene and his blood-alcohol level was .02 at 9 a.m., according to court testimony.
The accident occurred at 7:30 a.m. Saturday at Essex and Grove streets in Saugus. Caruso had his last drink at 6 a.m., Ronan said.
“The party should have ended at 4 a.m. when school-sponsored activities ended,” the prosecutor said.
A woman believed to be the teen’s mother was in court and sobbed as the details of the tragic crash were spelled out.
Authorities say Caruso hit both Charlotte Marean, 41, and Carol Marean, 67. The older woman was killed and her daughter critically injured.
They were walking their dog Happy when they were hit by a Chevy sedan being driven by Caruso, police said.
Two other teens were also in the car, police said.
Caruso, his lawyer said, lives with his mother and grandparents in Saugus and was set to graduate May 30.
The young man had attended his school’s senior prom Friday night at the Danversport Yacht Club and then was part of a chaperoned cruise of Boston Harbor. Teens were bused back to Saugus at 4 a.m.
The Essex prosecutor added that police found four beer cans in Caruso’s car at the scene of the crash.
Don't drink and drive, teens. Don't drink and drive. We'll show you movies about it, we'll let you listen to grieving relatives, we'll put a crashed car on campus, we'll do a mock drunk driving emergency drill. Then when it's prom night we'll give you two breathalyzers and give you rides to make sure you won't drive drunk. So don't drive drunk!
Yeah, yeah....So, like, where's the 4 a.m. post-prom party?
>>but defense attorney James McCall requested a bail Caruso’s family could afford.
Massachusetts in action. Who cares about the dead woman and her injured daughter...it’s the teens in that car that were
the real victims. Why, they could be emotionally scarred
for life now.
>>a young woman believed to be the defendant’s girlfriend said at the scene of the crash: “We killed that person. We want to take full responsibility.”
Glad she wants to take responsibility now, but how come she and the other guy in the car couldn’t stop Caruso from
driving drunk?
“I’m OK, I’m OK, I’ll drive.”
I don’t understand why blatantly witnessed situations like this the defendant always pleads ‘not guilty’. HE did it. So now there will be a trial?
I guess they will look for a technicality to get him off?
I don’t know if he had anything to drink before 4 a.m. when they were dropped back off at the school. He downs 10 beers in a little over 3 hours? Making up for lost time I guess.
So, this guy (who drank either 10 or 15 beers - underage, before driving, crashed his car, killed person ...) is pleading “innocent” ... on what grounds?
Was he too drunk to know that he was driving drunk?
Does his “lawyer” have any morals at all?
>>drank 10 beers earlier
From the first episode of Happy Days:
RICHIE: All we had was some beer, in teeny tiny glasses.
HOWARD: How many teeny tiny glasses did you have?
RICHIE: Seventy two.
>>Caruso had his last drink at 6 a.m.
oops—OK, so maybe he had ten beers his about 2 hours...?
Boy, I hate that whole concept of pleading innocent. If they had arrested me I would have pleaded innocent -- because I was no where near the crash -- so they'd have the wrong guy if they arrested me.
But the very drunk teenager, slumped over in the car which is crumpled up against the wreckage of the other car, the one with the dead 67-year-old in it? He's trying to say he's innocent??
To be honest, I think the trial should last 5 minutes. Max.
IN about 2 hours that should say (I type fast, I make mistakes...)
There was no other car—the 67 yr old woman and her daughter were walking their dog on a residential street. I saw the car on TV—it went across the sidewalk and nearly hit a house. He hit two pedestrians, not another car.
><>“The party should have ended at 4 a.m. when school-sponsored activities ended,
The school and others kept an eye on the kids till then and then had the kids brought back to their school. I guess they should have personally driven each kid back to his or her
house, too...
"Mr Fields, what would your father say if he knew you drank a fifth of gin every day?"
WC Fields - "Why, he'd call me a sissy!"
School-sponsored activities going until 4 AM? That's insane. Here they make the bars close at 2 AM. So either this kid was drinking during the "school-sponsored activities," or he drank 10 beers in 2 hours.
Why do sucker parents let their kids do dangerous stuff like this?
I was almost hit head on by a kid who was drunk while driving his older brother’s new truck. The State Trooper released the kid to his parents instead of arresting him because he (the trooper) didn’t want this to go on the kid’s permanent record.
Yeah I guess school sponsored “after proms” are in vogue now.
I just read the new book “Columbine” and it mentioned the prom there had one (and no, Michael Moore, the shooters did NOT go bowling just before the spree). So yes, the school
has sponsored activities till 4 AM, and then they end it by bringing them back to the school where presumably they’ll
either drive home (hey, they kept an eye on them, and they weren’t drinking...right?) or have someone take them home.
OR go and get bleepfaced in the wee wee hours.
One of the dead woman’s daughters (not the one who’s now in the hospital) wants all 3 teens to be charged as adults. Or should they go easy on the poor kids...?
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1172998
>>The daughter of a Saugus retiree killed by an allegedly drunken high-schooler after his prom is pleading with authorities to throw the book at him - as well as two classmates who reportedly ran past her mother’s body to save their own skins. “Even if it’s a citation, I want those two held accountable for trying to flee. I want them all tried as adults,” Michelle Marean said yesterday from a hospital bed vigil for her critically injured sister, Charlotte Marean.
>>Both Charlotte, 41, a stockperson for the MBTA, and the sisters’ late mother, Carol Marean, 67, were mowed down on a sidewalk at Essex and Grove streets early Saturday. They were walking their dog Happy when they were hit by Jonathan Caruso, 18, at the wheel of a Chevy sedan.
>>Two other Saugus High students in the car, who a source identified asCaruso’s girlfriend and a male pal, allegedly attempted to escape. Saugus police have not released their names, nor have they ruled out charging them.
(snip)
>>Sweezey said yesterday investigators still didn’t know where or how Caruso allegedly became intoxicated.
(snip)
>> “Any chance they’re going to find out who supplied these kids the liquor?” she angrily asked the Herald. “Where were the friends? Where were the family members who could have picked them up? All these messages we get over and over about ‘Don’t drink and drive.’ Why did everyone fail?”
government responds by stopping 46-year old Mormons at sobriety checkpoints.....
If he’s a minor and he’s been drinking, he’s already crossed into criminal activity. .01, .02, .08, .10, .20... is technicality. With gun crimes, they always ask “where’d he get it”. So who hooked up a minor with alcohol? And will there be prosecution since this case ended in death?
Looks like Massachusetts just found a new candidate to replace Ted Kennedy when he kicks.
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