An Orange County driver who pleaded guilty to fatally striking a pregnant woman while driving under the influence of a cocktail of drugs in 2020 was sentenced Friday to 15 years to life in prison.
The Orange County District Attorney’s Office said Courtney Fritz Pandolfi, 44, had multiple prior drunken driving convictions when she got behind the wheel on Aug. 11, 2020, while she was under the influence of a combination of drugs, including cocaine and methamphetamine, and was fatally sentenced to 23 years. -old Yesenia Aguilar.
Aguilar was eight months pregnant and walking with her husband in Anaheim when Pandolfi jumped the curb in her Jeep SUV, crashing into a metal newsstand before rushing toward the couple and hitting Aguilar.
Prosecutors said Pandolfi continued to drive another 347 feet without braking before his Jeep became disabled.
The baby, Adalyn Rose, was born alive via emergency cesarean section.
“A beautiful little girl came into this world fighting like hell to survive the tragedy that took her own mother’s life, and the strength this little girl showed gave her own father the will to live ” said Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said in a statement.
“Adalyn Rose’s first breath will forever be inextricably linked to her mother’s last breath,” Spitzer continued, “but this little girl will grow up knowing that her mother’s last act on earth was to do everything that she could to protect her unborn baby.”
Pandolfi, of Garden Grove, pleaded guilty in February to murder and various other charges, including felony driving under the influence of drugs causing bodily injury and two misdemeanors for driving with a suspended license. Some of the charges related to Pandolfi driving under the influence of drugs in November 2019.
Pandolfi had also been convicted of drunken driving in 2008, 2015 and 2016, prosecutors said, and each time received formal legal warnings that she could be charged with murder if she killed someone then that she was driving under the influence.
“My client accomplished today what she set out to do, which was to spare the family the additional heartache and heartache of a trial,” Pandolfi’s attorney, Fred Fascenelli, said when She pleaded guilty in February. “She recognizes that it’s a tragic situation that she caused.”
Aguilar’s widower, James Alvarez, posted a video on social media of himself leaving the courtroom with his daughter, now 3, after the sentencing. He wrote that after “the most difficult three years he had to endure,” it was “finally over.”
“I can finally close this chapter of my life,” Alvarez wrote on Instagram. “The murderer of my late wife was finally sentenced to the maximum sentence. Even though 15 years to live is not enough, I can finally breathe after fighting for so long to get the justice we deserve. …and (I) will continue to fight to make sure it never gets out.
He continued: “I was given a second chance at life because I could have died too…so I’m going to take this second opportunity to do good in this world.” I will (be) the voice and strength for every person who has lost a loved one due to the selfish actions of another person.
California Daily Newspapers
