Judge: Live your life for you and Mandy Le
By Heather Nolan, Beaumont Enterprise.com
Published 08:54 a.m., Wednesday, February 1, 2012
After Jonathan Edward Benitez learned that he had received 10 years' probation on his manslaughter conviction, a state district judge told him that the choices he made prior to the May wreck that killed Mandy Le made the outcome inevitable.
A five-man, seven-woman jury convicted Benitez, 20, of manslaughter Friday after deliberating for about 12 hours. They determined the punishment - 10 years' probation and a $10,000 fine - after about six hours of deliberations.
Before his probation begins, Benitez must serve 180 days in the county jail without credit for time already served, Criminal District Judge John Stevens said.
Testimony, which began last Tuesday, showed that on May 15, 2011, Benitez's Cadillac Escalade swerved, hit the curb at South and Fifth streets, then clipped a utility pole wire and eventually hit a tree. Le, a back-seat passenger, was partially thrown from the vehicle and decapitated by the wire.
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