Weller Pleads Not Guilty

By Oliver Lukacs
Staff Writer

Jan. 6 -- The 87-year-old driver who last summer barreled through a crowded farmer’s market killing ten and injuring 63 pleaded not guilty to ten counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence at his arraignment Tuesday in a crowded Los Angeles Superior Court.

With a media circus waiting in the wings, George Russell Weller, looking frail but aware and flanked by two lawyers, entered the plea in a packed and silent courtroom. If convicted, Weller faces up to 18 years in prison, or could walk free on probation.

Weller’s attorneys maintain that the “tragic accident” was caused by a heart condition (discovered after the incident) that led to a momentary loss of blood to the senior citizen’s head, leading him to step on the gas pedal instead of the brakes.

Weller expressed his “sincere sorrow and apologies to all the victims and their families for the tragedy,” said Defense Attorney Jim Bianco. “But the tragedy was an accident… The criminal charges are unwarranted.”

Convinced by the accounts of 398 eyewitnesses, Ann Rundle, the prosecuting deputy district attorney, said Weller should be convicted of gross negligence for not slamming on the brakes.

Instead, he sped for more than 10 seconds and 1,000 feet in his 1992 Buick LaSabre, leaving ten bodies in his wake, including a seven-month old baby and a 78-year-old woman.

“Witness’ statements indicate that Mr. Weller was alert, conscious, aware and in control of that vehicle throughout the entire incident,” Rundle said. “The evidence will demonstrate that he could have stopped the car at anytime… but didn’t.”

On the day Weller crashed through the sawhorses blocking the Farmers Market on Arizona Avenue reaching speeds of between 30 and 100 miles an hour, witnesses described him as stiff while the car hurled food tents, vegetables and bodies in the air.

The said he appeared lucid as he exited the vehicle holding a cane at the end of nearly three blocks of carnage.

Rundle said gross negligence is defined as “conduct that is reckless, flagrant, and contrary to a proper regard for human life.”

But defense attorneys argued there was no negligence because Weller was unaware of the heart condition -- a second-degree heart block -- partially responsible for the accident. The condition, Bianco said, can “cause anything from dizziness to a loss of function.

“There was absolutely no warning signs” that Weller, who up to that point had an impeccable 73-year driving record (a minor fender-bender notwithstanding) would lose control of the car, Bianco said. “It was completely unforeseeable,” he said.

Defining gross negligence as talking on a mobile phone, eating, or looking down while driving, Weller’s second defense attorney Mark Overland said his client is innocent.

Had Weller been doing any of those things, he would be tried for murder, not negligence, Overland said.

While he was responsible for what happened, Weller is not a criminal, and should be allowed to settle the case in the civil arena, Overland said.

“The criminal process is not going to compensate the victims,” because it will never return the people they lost that day, Overland said. There is no “other way to compensate victims in our society except money. It happens every day in court.”

While the accident has caused an inestimable amount of pain, suffering, and heartache for many people, “no amount of pain, suffering, and heartache can transform a terrible accident into a crime,” said Bianco.

Standing outside the towering glass and stone Airport Branch Superior Court building after the press conference, head Deputy District Attorney John Lynch said Weller’s defense was analogous to repeatedly firing a gun by “accident.”

“It’s like an accident defense for a gun. It works for the first bullet, but not for oops, oops, oops, oops,” he said using his hand to pantomime a handgun firing off over and over again.

Weller was released on his own cognizance until his trial after the judge rejected the DA’s argument that he was a danger to society and should pay $50,000 in bail.

However, Weller, who has reportedly lost his lust for life, can never drive again.