Wichita woman pleads guilty in motorcyclist’s DUI crash death, faces possible prison time
.JPG "Lila Garcia, at the time of her arrest.")
A Wichita woman on Tuesday pleaded guilty to drunken driving and leaving the scene of an accident in a deadly hit-and-run collision with a motorcyclist in southeast Wichita more than a year ago.
Prosecutors plan to ask Sedgwick County District Judge David Kaufman to send 27-year-old Lila Garcia to prison when she is sentenced Feb. 28, her plea agreement and court records say. It’s unclear whether she will ask the court to impose probation instead; her defense attorney did not immediately return an email message seeking comment Wednesday.
A probable cause affidavit released by the court says witnesses saw Garcia turn in front of and hit 32-year-old Alberto Ortiz Carrasco with a silver Kia Rio at Pawnee and Woodlawn shortly after 9 p.m. on Aug. 11, 2021. She drove off immediately, the affidavit says. Garcia admitted to a friend and sheriff’s deputies that she’d been involved in the collision and smelled of alcohol when authorities questioned her, according to the document.
Results of blood-alcohol testing showed Garcia had been too impaired to drive under Kansas law that night, the affidavit says. Authorities found a “pink and white flowered metal tumbler” containing alcohol behind the Kia’s center console, and Garcia exhibited signs of intoxication, including bloodshot, watery eyes, the affidavit says.
Ortiz Carrasco, who family has said was an aircraft company worker and father with an affinity for motorcycles and cars, died at the scene after suffering multiple fractures to his chest wall. Several of his internal organs had lacerations, his autopsy report says.
The Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office intends to ask the judge to impose a six-month jail sentence and a $750 fine for Garcia’s misdemeanor count of driving under the influence as well as 31 to 138 months in prison on the felony count of leaving the scene of an accident, to be served concurrently. The exact amount of prison time recommended will depend largely on Garcia’s prior criminal history. She is expected to fall on the lower end of that range.
Garcia “is free to argue for any lawful alternative disposition,” but the prosecution will oppose any such request, the plea agreement says.
She was originally charged with involuntary manslaughter while driving under the influence and failure to stop a deadly accident, both felony crimes, court records say.
