A twice-convicted drunken driver pleaded guilty Feb. 9 to the second-degree murder of a woman who was walking home from a nearby park with her family in 2018.
Kamal Akwette Attoh, 42, of Irvine is expected to be sentenced April 8 to 15 years to life in prison for the collision that killed 44-year-old Jeongmi Choi and injured her husband, rupturing his spleen, and hospitalized the couple’s 15-year-old daughter and 18-year-old son, according to Senior Deputy District Attorney Whitney Bokosky who announced the charges.
Mr. Attoh faced a murder charge instead of vehicular manslaughter due to previous convictions for drunk driving in Orange County in 2000 and in Ventura County two years later, Ms. Bokosky said.
She said Mr. Attoh’s 2012 BMW X5 struck the family on a sidewalk along Ridgeline Drive near Turtle Rock Drive before losing control down an embankment and slamming into a tree.
The defendant’s attorney said Mr. Attoh wanted to avoid putting Ms. Choi’s family through a lengthy trial, which is why he chose to plead guilty.
“Kamal wanted to accept responsibility for his actions and didn’t want to put the family through a trial and felt the resolution was just,” said his attorney, Jeff Kent.
According to testimony from a preliminary hearing, Mr. Attoh confessed to police he had taken Xanax—a drug that causes similar effects to alcohol—when driving home from his girlfriend’s house and drank four beers. He later changed his story and said he had been drinking vodka and martinis, according to police testimony at the time.
