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Drunk Driver Pleads Guilty of Fatality
Drunk driver pleads guilty to killing 19-year-old last Thanksgiving.
By Ken Moore
August 24, 2006





Details of the fatal crash scene were so horrific, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Casey M. Lingan asked the victim’s family if they wanted to leave the courtroom before he continued.
Some family members left while others remained in the courtroom and cried.
Pablo Cruz, 31 of the 3600 block of 16th St. in Washington D.C., pleaded guilty Wednesday, July 26 to aggravated involuntary manslaughter and driving while intoxicated.
Cruz, the driver of a pick-up truck, killed Jonathan Tyler Bentley, the rear passenger in a Honda Accord, 18 minutes past midnight on Thanksgiving morning, Nov. 24, 2005.
Cruz, who told police detectives he had consumed nine to 10 beers after work that day, crashed into the rear of the Honda Accord with such force that his truck moved the car 158 feet into the intersection of Route 50 and Annandale Road, Lingan said.
Bentley, a W.T. Woodson High School graduate, was in the rear passenger seat, which was pushed all the way into the front seat. He was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident, and an autopsy revealed he died of blunt force trauma to the head, said Lingan.
Cruz’s blood alcohol level was tested at .16, twice the legal limit.
Cruz said he remembered driving down Route 50 and being at the scene of the accident, but couldn’t remember anything in between, according to Lingan.
Cruz faces up to 20 years in prison for aggravated involuntary manslaughter and up to 12 months for DWI. He is scheduled to be sentenced by Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Stanley P. Klein this fall.

TYLER BENTLEY was killed four days before his 19th birthday.
"Once you met him, he was your friend," said Bob Bentley, Tyler’s father, last November.
Tyler Bentley spent the night before Thanksgiving watching television with his high school friends Jessica Vukmanic and Andrew Cruz (no relation to the defendant).
Andrew Cruz was driving Vukmanic to her home in Falls Church, and was stopped at a red light on Route 50, when the car the three of them were in was hit from behind.
Officer P. M. Flugrad was stopped at the same red light and saw the accident. He saw the defendant stagger out of his car, Lingan said.
Andrew Cruz ran to the officer in a frantic state and begged the officer to help his friends, Lingan said. Vukmanic was unconscious in the front passenger seat while Tyler Bentley was "clearly deceased."
Cruz was transported to the hospital, and was placed under arrest at the hospital within three hours of the accident.
Cruz, an illegal immigrant, was uninsured and unlicensed and his vehicle was not properly registered or insured, Lingan said.

JUDGE KLEIN asked Lingan about Jessica Vukmanic’s recovery.
Lingan said she had been hospitalized for a while. "With great luck and some intervention, she made a miraculous recovery and doesn’t seem to have any long term effects," Lingan said.
Family members of the victims will have the opportunity to voice the impact Tyler’s death and the crash have had on them at Cruz’s sentencing hearing this fall.
"We liked him as a person," said Nancy Bentley, Tyler’s mother. "Of course, we loved him as a son, but he was a very nice person."
Tyler left a lasting impression on everyone he met with his sharp sense of humor and large smile, she said last November.
Tyler Bentley was studying at Northern Virginia Community College and excelled at all sports from rock climbing and white water rafting to cross country running, bowling, golf, baseball and basketball.
Bob Bentley returned to the courtroom after Lingan described the scene of the accident, and he positioned himself in the front row where he took a long look at the man who killed his son.
"Young people must use their voices in changing laws and doing whatever they need to do to make it as hard as possible for [drunk drivers]," Bob Bentley said last November, on the day his son would have turned 19.

<1b>— Reporter Lea Rice contributed to this story.