Trucker convicted of vehicular manslaughter in Mission Viejo crash
Jorge Miguel Romero faces three years in prison for an incident that killed three children last year.
A big-rig truck driver was convicted today of vehicular manslaughter for slamming into the back of a minivan in a crash last year that killed three young siblings.
Jorge Miguel Romero, 38, of Apple Valley pleaded no contest to three misdemeanor counts of vehicular manslaughter involving criminal negligence and faces three years in jail, according to the Orange County district attorney's office.
He is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 14.
Romero was accused of driving at an unsafe speed when his tractor-trailer slammed into the van, killing Ladera Ranch siblings Kyle Coble, 5, and his sisters, Emma, 4, and Katie, 2. Romero also was accused of being inattentive, not keeping enough distance between his truck and stopped traffic and hitting the brakes too late to stop.
The charges were recommended by the California Highway Patrol, which investigated the accident.
Romero told police he was traveling 55 to 60 mph in the southbound slow lane on Interstate 5 in Mission Viejo when traffic suddenly halted. He said he couldn't stop in time to avoid plowing into the back of the van, which was stopped behind traffic in an exit lane.
State law requires drivers to travel at a speed that is reasonable for conditions including weather, visibility, traffic and width of the highway.
Romero was not injured in the crash. Lori Coble, 30, and the children's grandmother, Cynthia Maestri, 60, were badly injured and hospitalized for days.
Earlier this year, Lori and her husband, Chris, welcomed three new children to their family -- two girls and a boy -- conceived through in-vitro fertilization.
christine.hanley@latimes.com
