Ten-year sentence imposed for car racing fatality
By Jim Dooley
Advertiser Staff Writer
A state judge hammered 24-year-old Justin Amorin today with a 10-year prison sentence for a 2007 Mililani car racing crash that killed a 17-year-old girl and mentally disabled another teenager.
After hearing emotional, anguished testimony from relatives and friends of the victims, Circuit Judge Karen Ahn ordered Amorin to serve back-to-back five year terms for negligent homicide and assault.
Amorin was convicted of the offenses in a jury trial but was acquitted of a more serious manslaughter charge.
His lawyer, Reginald Minn, asked Ahn for a sentence of one to four years prison term because he was a 21-year-old youthful offender at the time of the crash.
But Deputy Prosecutor Sean Sanada said Amorin was racing his car with a friend�s vehicle at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour on residential Mililani streets before crashing into a tree.
One passenger in Amorin�s car, Gillian Badua, 17, was killed and another, Gavin Watson, received irreversible brain injuries.
Jillian Badua�s mother, Michaele, brother, Barrett, and grandmother, Patricia Kalima, spoke about the devastation her death has caused the family.
Watson�s mother, Marcie Watson, also addressed the court.
The driver of the second car, Bernard DeCoito Jr., is scheduled to go to trial next year on a manslaughter charge.