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Olga Franco, 24, convicted of driving the van in the Cottonwood school bus crash that killed four students, was sentenced to 12 1/2 years in prison. She can expect to see her time cut by one-third to about 100 months -- 8 years and 4 months -- for good behavior, officials said. Franco sat stone-faced when she heard the sentence. Judge David Peterson, sitting specially in Lyon County, gave a lengthy explanation to families of how the law applied in the case and how he arrived at the sentence. “I don’t imagine I have pleased anyone with this sentence. I...

In the end, a Kandiyohi County jury believed that Olga Franco was behind the wheel of a van when it plowed into a loaded Cottonwood school bus nearly six months ago, killing four students and injuring 17. The 24-year-old Guatemalan native, who had claimed that her boyfriend was driving the van, showed no emotion when the verdict was read -- guilty on all 24 counts, including criminal vehicular homicide and criminal vehicular injury. Family members of the victims wept quietly as the verdict was read about 10 p.m. Over more than four days of testimony from crash experts and other...

Franco was driving van, and not a passenger, state investigator says...... Olga Franco was already in the driver's seat of her boyfriend's minivan — and couldn't have been thrown into it — during the collision with a school bus this winter, a crash expert testified Friday. The details of the crash came on the second day of Franco's trial in Kandiyohi County, where she faces charges in the Feb. 19 accident that killed four children near Cottonwood. It was also the newest bit of testimony to put Franco into the driver's seat of the van, a place defense attorney Manuel...

The first emergency workers to arrive at the fatal Cottonwood school bus crash scene in February described for a jury Thursday how they found Olga Franco pinned in the driver's seat of the van that hit the bus. Franco's right leg was stuck under the van's crumpled dashboard, her foot wedged between the gas pedal and the dashboard's center console, witnesses said in Kandiyohi County District Court. In the trial's first day of testimony, Lyon County Attorney Rick Maes hammered at that key point -- that Franco was the driver of the van -- one that Franco's defense attorneys are...

New information could help the woman charged in a deadly school bus accident. Her attorney said there is new DNA evidence that could clear Olga Franco as the driver of a van that crashed into a school bus in February killing four children. At a hearing Friday, attorneys for Franco said they have DNA evidence that proves a man was driving the van. They said DNA taken from the driver's side airbag shows it came from an unidentified male. Franco has told police that her boyfriend, Francisco Sangabriel-Mendoza, was driving the van. Police have yet to locate him.

The trial of a woman charged in a fatal school bus crash has been moved from Marshall to Willmar. Lyon County District Judge David Peterson granted the change of venue Wednesday. He also scheduled the trial of Olga Marina Franco del Cid of Minneota to begin July 28 at the Kandiyohi County courthouse. Four children from Lakeview School in Cottonwood died when a van ran a stop sign and hit their bus Feb. 19. Prosecutors say Franco, 34, was driving the van, but she claims it was her boyfriend. He hasn't been found. In his order Wednesday, the judge wrote...

The lawyer for Olga Franco, the woman charged in the fatal Cottonwood, Minn school bus crash, has filed a motion demanding a speedy trial for his client. Olga Marina Franco del Cid, of Minneota, has been in the Lyon County Jail since her arrest on February 20. Franco is charged with four counts of criminal vehicular homicide in the deaths of brother Hunter and Jesse Javens, Reed Stevens, an Emilee Olson. In filing the motion, attorney Manuel Guerrero cites the length of Franco’s jail stay, and says prosecutors have failed to return phone calls and provide him with their evidence...

A federal agent testified this morning that he has learned since the fatal Cottonwood, Minn., school bus crash that the woman accused of causing the accident was not alone in her van. Olga Franco's boyfriend was with her in the van at the time of the Feb. 19 crash, said Jeremy Christenson, a special agent with Immigration, Customs and Enforcement. Four schoolchildren died in the accident. Christenson said he learned this through interviews he conducted. "I did learn that, yes," Christenson said under cross-examination from Franco's attorney Manuel Guerrero. Guerrero asked the court to depose three witnesses so he could...

The lawyer for Olga Marina Franco del Cid wants a change of venue. Manuel Guerrero filed notice with the Lyon County District Court Administrator's office. Franco is charged with four counts of criminal vehicular homicide for the deaths of four students on February 19. Prosecutors say Franco was driving a minivan on Lyon County Road 24. According to the complaint, she blew through a stop sign and hit the bus. Franco apparently doesn't have a driver's license. Immigration and Customs Exchange officials also say Franco is in the country illegally and used a false identity while in the U.S. During...

The van driver who struck a school bus and killed four children was charged Wednesday with four counts of criminal vehicular homicide. Olga Marina Franco del Cid, 24, was indicted by a grand jury on a total of six federal counts. In April, she was charged with two counts of identify theft, two counts of false representation and two counts of using a false document for employment. On Feb. 19, four students were killed when Franco del Cid hit their school bus on Minnesota Highway 23 near Cottonwood in Lyon County. According to a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement,...

The air bags from the van a woman is accused of crashing into a school bus killing four children will be tested for DNA to help establish who was driving. Olga Franco, 24, appeared in court in Marshall, Minn. on Tuesday for a hearing to determine if Franco's statements to investigators should be thrown out, and at the same time revealed new information about the case. Police say Franco was driving the van on Feb. 19 that hit a school bus in Cottonwood back in February. She is charged with criminal vehicular homicide after four students from the Lakeview School...

The $200,000 bail set for a woman charged with causing a school bus crash that killed four children in Lyon County will stand. On Tuesday, Lyon County District Judge David Peterson denied a defense motion to reduce the bail amount in the case of 24-year-old Olga Marina Franco del Cid. She is charged with criminal vehicular homicide following the bus crash that killed four students from the Lakeview School District on February 19th. Franco's attorney, Manuel Guerrero, argued that another judge did not consider all the facts in the case when he set the bail amount. Lyon County Attorney Rick...

The way Olga Franco tells it, she was a passenger the afternoon of Feb. 19, heading toward work in Cottonwood and arguing with her boyfriend, who was behind the wheel, when she saw the school bus. She yelled at him to be careful, but the van's brakes weren't working well, she said, and they went through the intersection and into the bus. Franco is now charged with criminal vehicular homicide in the deaths of four schoolchildren who were on the bus and has become a flashpoint in the debate on undocumented immigrants. Speaking publicly Tuesday for the first time, Franco,...

Family members of the woman charged with causing the fatal school bus crash last month near Cottonwood say she left her native Guatemala two years earlier, hoping to make a better life for her family. The parents of Olga Franco tell the St. Paul Pioneer Press that she was sending them small amounts of money to help supplement about five dollars a day they earn growing corn. Franco is charged with four counts of criminal vehicular homicide in the crash that killed four students aged 9 to 13. Family members recall her as a loving daughter who helped care for...