A Laurel woman has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in an October drunken-driving crash that killed a former area basketball standout.
A jury in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt convicted 23-year-old Kristen D. Smith after a three-day trial.
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Prosecutors say Smith was drunk when she was driving in the one-car crash that killed her passenger, 32-year-old Jabari Outtz, in the early morning of Oct. 31 on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway.
Smith faces up to eight years in prison and a $250,000 fine when she is sentenced in January.
Outtz, of Greenbelt, had been a star basketball player at Good Counsel High School and at Howard and James Madison universities.
The crash occurred at about 3:30 a.m. when the pair was driving to Laurel from a club in D.C. They were traveling north on the parkway north of New York Avenue near Cheverly, according to the U.S. Park Police. The vehicle crossed the median and hit a wall at the edge of the parkway’s southbound lanes.
Outtz died at the scene. Smith was transported to the Prince George’s Hospital Center for treatment of minor injuries.
At the hospital, authorities heard Smith make statements including “Don’t drive drunk” and “Lock me up and throw away the key,” prosecutors said in a court document. She also repeatedly asked if Outtz was OK.
Smith was indicted on one count of involuntary manslaughter — an unintentional killing that occurs during the commission of a misdemeanor — in February.
According to government evidence, her blood-alcohol level was .09 percent, just above the legal limit of .08 percent, court records show.
Smith’s public defender, Susan M. Bauer, did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.
In a court filing asking for Smith to be acquitted, Bauer argued that testing her blood-alcohol concentration after the crash failed to prove that she was legally drunk while operating the vehicle.
U.S. District Judge Roger W. Titus scheduled Smith’s sentencing for Jan. 31.
At Good Counsel, in Wheaton, the 1995 graduate Outtz earned All-Met honors and led the team to an 80-19 record in his career.
In his first year at Howard, he was a starting point guard and was named the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference freshman of the year.
He later transferred to James Madison and led the team in points and assists in each of his two seasons there.
