Thread: MN: Franco found guilty in Cottonwood school bus crash

Franco found guilty in Cottonwood school bus crash
By PAM LOUWAGIE, Star Tribune
August 7, 2008

[img]http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/502*378/1franco0807.jpg[/img]
Jurors didn’t believe Olga Franco’s defense that her boyfriend was driving the van that collided with a Cottonwood school bus and left four students dead.

WILLMAR, MINN. - 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 witnesses, the jurors had been faced with one central question: Had Franco been driving the van that plowed into the bus on Feb. 19?

Even if they had determined that Franco wasn't behind the wheel and had acquitted her, she hadn't been expected to walk out of the courthouse. She still faces federal identity theft charges and was likely to be deported because authorities say she is in the country illegally.

After the verdict, David Javens, grandfather of two of the children killed in the crash, Hunter and Jesse Javens, emerged from the courtroom smiling.

"It's what we were waiting for, I guess," he said.

But, he added, "You can't help but look at another young life that's ruined, and that's hers."

The boys' mother, Rita Javens, said, "I knew she was guilty. I knew it."

She said that after the first verdict was read, she looked up to her lost sons and said, "This is for you guys."

Hunter and Jesse's father, Marty Javens, called the verdict "a big plus to the community."

"We can start working ourselves back to normal," he said, adding that he was "still kind of in shock."

Kim Louwagie, the mother of two children injured in the crash, said, "One of the fears that my children had is that this person could get away and do this again to other kids."

Now, she said, she could tell them that that won't happen.

The verdict met with dismay from Franco's defense team. "I'm kind of shocked," said attorney Neal Eisenbraun. "I don't know what reasonable doubt is if it's not that. I don't see how they came to that conclusion."

Eisenbraun said he and other defense attorneys had worked on the case mostly for free because they believed in Franco's innocence. He said that he had interviewed her countless times and that "she says the same thing every time. Every time."

"I'm going to do everything I can to help her, and I'm not going to leave her until she's back in her country," he said, adding that Franco is confused about the legal system here and what has happened to her.

Asked if there were plans to appeal, defense attorney Manuel Guerrero said, "I just don't know at this point."

As people left the courthouse, Eisenbraun and others from the defense team approached some of the families to offer good wishes. The people of Cottonwood are good people, Eisenbraun said.

Franco is to be sentenced in 30 to 45 days, court officials said.

Defense arguments rejected

The Franco case reignited a debate over illegal immigration in the region, a debate that also continues to rage nationwide.

Attorneys had sent jurors away with vastly different scenarios to consider from the crash.

With Franco found behind the wheel of the van and allegedly admitting initially that she was driving, the prosecution had argued in closing statements that there should be no question of her guilt.

But Franco's defense team had argued that authorities were desperately looking for someone to blame and leaped to that conclusion too quickly - failing to fully investigate the possibility that Franco's boyfriend, Francisco Sangabriel Mendoza, was actually behind the wheel and that Franco was thrown into the driver's seat on impact, when he was thrown out.

Lyon County Attorney Rick Maes pointed to witnesses who talked about finding Franco pinned in the driver's seat and of how it took more than a half-hour to get her out. Witnesses testified that her right foot was trapped near the accelerator pedal. "The fact that she had to be extricated is really the telling detail," Maes said.

He recounted how Franco told authorities in the hospital hours after the crash that she was driving -- a conversation she testified this week that she doesn't remember. Defense attorneys had argued that she was under the influence of pain medications that night and had a poor interpreter. Maes reminded jurors of the interpreter's testimony that they were simple questions she was translating.

Eisenbraun, who delivered closing arguments for the defense, said he couldn't imagine the depth of pain that the parents of the victims felt.

But he urged the jury "not to pile more tragedy" on top of what Franco has already endured. Franco sobbed quietly as he spoke.

The prosecution demonized Franco from the beginning, he contended. He argued that authorities didn't do a good enough job in following up every lead in the boyfriend scenario.

They didn't do enough to search for him and didn't bring other key witnesses to the stand, including one who was in a car that was passed by the van on the road before the crash, he said.

The sorrow lingers

Late Wednesday, Joan DesLauriers, grandmother of the Javens boys, said that the verdict brought "relief in some ways.

"But still it doesn't bring our grandsons back," she said.
http://tinyurl.com/5n4u53

Justice has been served for those kids and that's what's important Thank you God.

I am so relieved. Earlier articles has made it seem like her attorneys were leaving room for reasonable doubt with the DNA/airbag issue.

How unbearable that two families lost children, how unimaginable that another family lost two dear children.

I would be very angry as a parent if I heard her defense attorney say this;

Eisenbraun, who delivered closing arguments for the defense, said he couldn't imagine the depth of pain that the parents of the victims felt.

But he urged the jury "not to pile more tragedy" on top of what Franco has already endured. Franco sobbed quietly as he spoke.

The verdict met with dismay from Franco's defense team. "I'm kind of shocked," said attorney Neal Eisenbraun. "I don't know what reasonable doubt is if it's not that. I don't see how they came to that conclusion."



What are the lower and upper limits of her sentence??

fedup - I think it was the defense team working the media in hopes of planting at least some small seeds of doubt out into the general public (with, I suspect, the highly suspect notion that jurors might actually view and believe those reports).

Here is the telling fact that really matters:

Lyon County Attorney Rick Maes pointed to witnesses who talked about finding Franco pinned in the driver's seat and of how it took more than a half-hour to get her out. Witnesses testified that her right foot was trapped near the accelerator pedal. "The fact that she had to be extricated is really the telling detail," Maes said.

How can the defense claim, 'oh, it was the boyfriend' when they have to manually extricate Franco from what is clearly the driver's position in the vehicle? It just doesn't add up. And

...guilty on all 24 counts...

- the jury knew what really happened.

I'm glad she's facing the prospect of some serious time before facing ultimate deportation. Hopefully, the justice system in MN is based in reality enough to not let her slide by with a token sentence.

Let's see:
Illegally entering America
Using fraudlent/stolen ID to obtain employment?
Driving without a license or insurance
Manning a motor vehicle that killed 4 and cause scores of injuries to others
Fabricating a lie in order to deceive a jury from the truth

Anything else I am missing?

Its a shame that they won't seek the death penalty for her.

You got it right zeezil.

I hope she is in prison for a long time and then deported. I really hope they bring her up on the other charges too.