By BILL HETHCOCK - THE GAZETTE

MONUMENT - A yellow caution sign on Monument Hill Road warns drivers to slow to 30 mph for the curve ahead.

Around the curve, wilting yellow chrysanthemums and a blue-andwhite sign mark the place where 16-year-old Michael Toter’s Dodge Neon careened off the road.

“Please drive safely,” the sign says. “In memory of Sara Michelle Losasso.”

Losasso, a passenger in Toter’s car, was 14 years old and less than a mile from home when she died Jan. 19 in the wreck.

Toter, who turned 16 two months before the crash, is charged with reckless vehicular homicide, a felony.

Despite his age, Toter is charged as an adult and faces two to six years in prison if convicted in the crash that killed his Lewis-Palmer High School classmate as he gave her and two other teens a ride home from school.

Prosecutors in Colorado routinely charge juveniles as adults when the crime is murder, where the intent is to kill. But traffic accidents raise questions about where to draw the line when there’s no intent but the result is the same.

Like all fatal wrecks, what happened on Monument Hill Road was a tragedy. But it was an accident, not a crime, said Toter’s father, who is upset his son is charged as an adult.

“Trying to destroy my son isn’t going to bring Sara back,” Michael Toter Sr. said.

Losasso’s parents declined comment about the case. Larry Losasso wouldn’t say what he considers an appropriate punishment for Toter.

The Losassos were consulted about the charges, but the final decision rests with prosecutors, said Lisa Kirkman, spokeswoman for the 4th Judicial District Attorney’s Office. The Losassos asked prosecutors to charge Toter as an adult so that any conviction would be on his record for life instead of being concealed as a juvenile record, she said.

District Attorney John Newsome wouldn’t discuss specifics of Toter’s case, but said his office takes seriously crimes in which recklessness is a factor and a death results.

Ivan Majestic, whose son was one of three teens killed in a Douglas County crash, said his son’s death has taught him that Colorado prosecutors routinely overcharge teenage drivers.

The June 2004 crash east of Parker killed Tony Majestic, 16, and Sean Student and Michael Budge, both 17, who were riding in a car driven by 16-year-old classmate Todd Stansfield. Stansfield’s car crossed the center line and crashed into an oncoming vehicle driven by Marvin Gilchrist, 77, who also died.

Investigators said Stansfield was speeding but couldn’t agree how fast he was going.

Stansfield was charged as an adult with four counts of vehicular homicide and could have faced 24 years in prison. Under terms of a plea deal, he pleaded guilty to two counts of criminally negligent homicide and was sentenced to 90 days in a juvenile facility, 12 years on probation and 1,200 hours of community service.

Even that sentence was too harsh, Majestic said. Despite his son’s death, Majestic protested Stansfield being tried as an adult and feels the same way about Toter.

“Kids are going to make mistakes,” he said. “That’s what our juvenile system is for.

“There seems to be a vendetta toward teenagers. These prosecutors think they need to be treated as adults to make an example of them.

“Educate them,” he said. “Don’t incarcerate them.”

In a Weld County case, Benjamin Moden, 17, who was not charged as an adult, was sentenced last month in Greeley to five years on probation and 300 hours of community service for causing a wreck that killed two teenage passengers and seriously injured a third.

Moden ran a stop sign May 25 and crashed into a truck. He pleaded guilty to two counts of careless driving resulting in death and one count of careless driving resulting in bodily injury.

In El Paso County, some teens who caused fatal crashes have been charged as adults, others have not.

Jennifer Iramina, 16, was speeding in March 2000 when she lost control of her Honda Accord at a curve on Metropolitan Street in Widefield. The car hit a tree, fatally injuring a 15-year-old passenger and seriously injuring three other passengers.

Prosecutors originally charged Iramina as an adult with vehicular homicide and vehicular assault. She pleaded guilty to the lesser charge and was sentenced to five years on probation and 600 hours of community service.

Chassie Vuittonet, 16, was not charged as an adult after an April 2003 crash. Vuittonet turned her Ford Pinto in front of another car on Powers Boulevard at Airport Road. She collided with another car that spun into a third, killing a 60-year-old woman.

Vuittonet was charged with careless driving and failing to yield right of way while making a left turn. The latter charge was dismissed, and she received a 24-month deferred sentence.

No alcohol or illegal drugs were involved in Iramina’s or Vuittonet’s wrecks.

Newsome said prosecuting juveniles as adults provides a wider range of punishment options. A juvenile charged as an adult can be sentenced to a youth correctional facility instead of prison if a judge decides that’s best, he said.

“The Colorado Legislature has decided that vehicular homicides are crimes that are appropriate for the adult system,” he said. “Every case is a case-by-case decision.”

Newsome said he’s not trying to make an example of Toter.

“We don’t charge people to set an example,” he said. “We charge people for their actions, and we hold them responsible for those actions.”

Prosecutors in El Paso County rarely prosecute juveniles in adult court, Kirkman said. In 2004, the DA’s office reviewed more than 3,000 juvenile cases and charged only six as adults, she said.

Toter’s lawyer, Ed Farry, wonders why they chose this case.

Adult charges aren’t warranted because Toter has no criminal record, and neither drugs nor alcohol was a factor in the crash, Farry said. At worst, Toter was exceeding the speed limit by a few miles per hour, which doesn’t amount to recklessness, Farry said.

If the case goes to trial, the issue will be Toter’s speed and whether it was reckless.

Just after the wreck, a Colorado State Patrol investigator told doctors who treated Toter that the teen was driving about 90 mph when he slid off Monument Hill Road just south of County Line Road.

But the state patrol report, completed after accident reconstruction and measurements were complete, states Toter was driving about 54 mph in a 45-mph zone.

One of two passengers in the back seat of Toter’s Neon filed a court statement saying Toter wasn’t speeding. In addition to vehicular homicide, Toter is charged with vehicular assault, two counts of careless driving involving bodily injury and reckless driving.