Drunken-driver to pay $862,118 restitution

By Chris Paschenko , The Daily News Published May 9, 2012

 

GALVESTON — A Galveston woman’s relatives wheeled her into a courtroom Tuesday to hear the guilty plea of a drunken-driver who slammed into her car 18 months ago, leaving her in a semiconscious state.

Relatives of Sarah Hrachovina Coreas, 21, were unsure whether she comprehended the proceeding in which Omar Santana Ortiz, 31, avoided prison but agreed to pay her restitution of $862,118 to cover her medical bills so far.

Ortiz pleaded guilty to a charge of intoxicated assault, stemming from an Oct. 18, 2010, three-car crash at 61st Street and the eastbound lanes of the Interstate 45 frontage road. Ortiz’s blood-alcohol level measured 0.19, more than twice the legal limit, Prosecutor Bill Reed said.

Ortiz received a 10-year prison sentence. In agreement with the plea bargain, which was approved by Coreas’ relatives, Judge Lonnie Cox, of Galveston’s 56th District Court, probated the sentence, giving Ortiz 10 years community supervision.

After the crash, police said Ortiz left the scene and was captured in a swampy area behind a nearby shopping center.

Coreas opened her eyes from a coma nearly a month after the wreck. She remained Tuesday in a semiconscious state and needs constant care at a Galveston nursing home, her mother, Teresa Hrachovina, said.

Coreas doesn’t walk, talk or eat yet, but doctors think she can understand more, Hrachovina said.

“She opens her eyes, and she watches TV,” Hrachovina said. “If something’s funny, she’ll laugh ... If somebody leaves, she’ll cry.”

Coreas’ relatives took the witness stand Tuesday to let Ortiz know how his actions affected everyone and left Coreas confined to a wheelchair. Afterward, Coreas’ relatives wheeled her to the lobby, wondering if she understood the proceeding, Coreas’ sister Arica Angelo said.

“Through the whole thing, she wasn’t crying,” Angelo said. “As soon as we got outside, we said, ‘we love you.’ I said, ‘eh, I love you a little bit’ and she started laughing.”

Kevin Rekoff, Ortiz’s attorney, said in his 25 years of practice, he’d never seen a man so regretful and remorseful.

Coreas’ relatives agreed to the settlement, in which Ortiz must pay $7,184 per month in restitution. Ortiz, who at the time of the crash managed a bar in Spring, must abide by a long list of court-ordered demands, including serving jail time on the weekends for 25 days. He can’t drink alcohol, can’t enter a bar and must drive automobiles with devices that test the driver for alcohol. He also has to attend substance abuse counseling, among other things.

Coreas’ husband, Edwin Coreas, is living with his family while caring for the couple’s toddler, Naomi.

Attorney Darrell A. Apffel filed a lawsuit in January 2011 against Ortiz on behalf of Edwin Coreas, accusing Ortiz of negligence, among other things. A pretrial conference on the case is set for August.

Attorney Douglas C. Clark, who represents Ortiz on the civil matter, was unaware Tuesday of the outcome of Tuesday’s court proceedings. Clark said he didn’t immediately know how Ortiz’s guilty plea would affect the civil case.

The area where the wreck that hurt Coreas occurred was the scene of 20 similar wrecks in 2009. Eastbound drivers on the frontage road reported confusion with the light configuration. The city has since altered the configuration.

Boy killed as he, friends play with gun in Spring Branch

At first, Yvonne Schroeder thought nothing of the loud boom. She assumed the boys playing outside Sunday afternoon had thrown a rock at her apartment door.  Then, they started banging on the door: "Miss Yvonne, help us, Alex has been shot!"  Schroeder, a 36-year-old nurse, raced toward apartment No. 3 in the tidy Spring Branch complex in the 2000 block of Laverne Street. Inside, 11-year-old Alex was in a fetal position and "already blue" as she began CPR, Schroeder said.  "He didn't have a pulse," she said. "I was crying, 'Alex, please, Alex, wake up.?" 

The boy with big, dark eyes and wide smile had already lost a lot of blood, she said. Late Sunday, police released few details but said it appeared to be an accidental shooting.  They detained several teenagers, including the 15-year-old suspected shooter, for questioning.  Neighbors, friends and relatives said Alex - whose last name was not released - and about four other boys were playing with a gun they had found in Alex's father's apartment.  A 15-year-old boy fired the gun outside. The bullet somehow ricocheted against the roof, bounced back on the door, struck Alex in the arm and went through his body.  Alex was pronounced dead at Memorial Hermann Children's Hospital.  The boys panicked, running for help. Blood trailed from outside the apartment to the living room, where Alex fell.  As loud pop songs played on the radio, Alex's teenage sister, who was baby-sitting him, came running.

When police arrived, they had to handcuff her because she was so upset.  Meanwhile, the 15-year-old boy, who residents said played drums in the band at Spring Oaks Middle School, ran to his mother's apartment.  "He was crying," said Jasmine Tapia, 14, who lives a few apartments down and whose brother was detained as a witness. "He kept saying, 'It was an accident, I promise!'?"  "He's a good kid," said Jasmine's mother, 30-year-old Lydia Reyes. "He's always coming over here to play video games."  Relatives said Alex lived with his mother in Porter, near New Caney, but often stayed at the apartment with his father and stepmother.  The stepmother's brother, who also lives in the unit, sat outside the police tape Sunday staring grimly at the scene.  The man, who declined to give his name, said he had been out of town. He stored his gun in the top of a closet in his room, "way out of a child's reach," he said.  "Alex didn't even know I had a gun," he said. "Somebody would have had to be in my closet, going through my stuff." 

Alex's parents were at the hospital and could not be reached. At the complex, residents huddled around in shock.  "I feel for the parents," said Donna Brumfield, 42, whose son was detained as a witness.  "Being a mother, I feel the pain. I feel it in my heart," she said.  Schroeder wiped at sudden tears. She had spoken to Alex just the other day. All the boys, she said, "are just like my kids.”  Two thoughts kept circling in her head. Thank you that it wasn't her 8-year-old. But why didn't she run outside immediately after the boom?  "If I'd gone outside right away," the nurse said, "maybe I could have saved his life."

Motorcyclist dies in head-on collision in Conroe

Deputies are trying to figure out why a motorcyclist veered into oncoming traffic in Conroe overnight. It happened on FM 1315. The cyclist crashed into another vehicle and died instantly.   Deputies say the driver of the car was not hurt and they don't suspect alcohol was a factor in the crash.

Supreme Court health care arguments under way

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has begun hearing arguments over the fate of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law.

 

The nine justices began hearing arguments a little after 10 a.m. EDT after Chief Justice John Roberts announced the day's decisions by the court on other cases.

 

The justices are considering the constitutionality of a provision requiring individuals to have health insurance by 2014 or pay a penalty. Two federal appeals courts have upheld the law.  Another appeals court struck down only the insurance mandate, and one said a tax law makes it premature to decide the merits until the main coverage provisions take effect in 2014.

 

The justices are hearing six hours of arguments this week. Monday's discussion is over whether the lawsuit is premature.

Death magnifies Pradaxa hemorrhage concerns

(Reuters) - The death of an elderly man from a massive brain hemorrhage after a routine fall suggests that bleeding complications from Boehringer Ingelheim's Pradaxa blood clot preventer are largely irreversible, according to the Journal of Neurosurgery.

 

The recently approved drug is the first in a new class of oral medicines called direct thrombin inhibitors, approved to prevent strokes among patients with a dangerous irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation that mostly affects the elderly.

 

U.S. regulators said in December they were evaluating other cases of bleeding associated with the drug, whose chemical name is dabigatran, but advised patients to continue the medicine for now.

 

Three doctors from the University of Utah monitored and described the worsening condition, and ultimate death, of the 83-year-old man who was evaluated at their medical center for what seemed at first a rather routine fall, according to the report Tuesday in the journal's online edition.

 

Initially, the patient was fully alert and oriented and could respond to verbal commands, and his neurological exam produced no findings of great concern, the clinicians said.

They said CT scans revealed small, superficial areas of hemorrhage in his brain, but that within two hours after arriving at the hospital new scans showed extensive progression of brain hemorrhaging.

 

Efforts to stop the hemorrhaging, including intravenous fluids and a protein called recombinant factor VIIa, proved ineffective and the patient fell into a deep coma and died soon afterward, the report said.

 

"In the event of traumatic hemorrhage in patients receiving dabigatran ... there are currently no effective reversal agents" to neutralize the drug, the report said.

 

ADVERSE EFFECTS

 

Familiarity with Pradaxa is critical in order for medical personnel to take quick action with admittedly limited available means to control catastrophic bleeding, the report said.

Researchers speculated that dialysis might remove 35 percent to 60 percent of Pradaxa from the bloodstream in two to three hours, but noted that option was not taken with the elderly patient. "By the time of his deterioration it was too late to implement effectively."

 

Since balance problems and falls are common for elderly patients, cases of brain hemorrhage even from a minor trauma are likely to increase as more patients get prescribed Pradaxa, the researchers said.

 

"Bleeding is unfortunately one of the adverse effects of all anticoagulants," said John Smith, senior vice president for clinical development at Boehringer Ingelheim.

 

Although there is no antidote to Pradaxa that could control bleeding, including among fall victims like the elderly man, Smith said patients taking Pradaxa in a large clinical trial had a 59 percent lower overall incidence of intracranial bleeding than patients taking warfarin.

 

Pradaxa was approved by U.S. regulators in October 2010 for stroke prevention in patients with atrial fibrillation. It is the first of a new crop of blood clot preventers meant to replace warfarin -- a longtime oral treatment that carries serious bleeding risks and requires routine blood monitoring and stringent dietary restrictions.

 

The report said patients taking the highest dose of Pradaxa in a large clinical trial sponsored by Boehringer had a similar overall rate of brain hemorrhage as those taking warfarin, while having a lower annual incidence of stroke. But the lack of a reversal agent in the event of catastrophic hemorrhage remains a handicap, they said. 

 

The new medicine from privately held German drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim competes with Xarelto, a pill from Johnson & Johnson and Bayer AG, approved four months ago in the United States that works by blocking a protein called Factor Xa. 

 

Another Factor Xa inhibitor from Bristol-Myers Squibb Co and Pfizer Inc, called Eliquis, is being reviewed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approval.

 

It is deemed by Wall Street to be the best of the new oral anticoagulants because it proved both safer and more effective than warfarin in large clinical trials. Industry analysts have speculated Eliquis could reap annual sales of $4 billion or more.

 

 

Call Gary S. Tucker & Associates if you or a loved one has taken Pradaxa.  (281/445-5777)

Stanford guilty of $7 billion swindle

Texas financier R. Allen Stanford was convicted today of all but one of 14 charges that he swindled investors out of more than $7 billion.  Sanford, 61, could receive 20 years in prison for the most serious of his crimes – much longer if the judges elects to run his sentences one after the other. 

 

            Prosectors told a jury, which deliberated for four days, that the head of the Galleria-area based Stanford Financial Group had executed one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history over the course of 20 years.  Stanford’s defense, meanwhile, had largely blamed his former financial officer.  The trial was postponed early in 2011 due to Stanford’s addiction to anti-anxiety drugs that occurred while in jail.  The federal government shut down the financial empire in February 2009 with Sanford’s personal wealth estimated at $2.2 billion.  Few victims of the swindle have received any compensation.

 

Driver gets out after wreck, is killed by oncoming truck

A man died in a traffic crash after another vehicle slammed into his truck following an earlier wreck in Montgomery County on Wednesday night.  The wreck occurred on FM 105 near McCaleb Road along Lake Conroe about 8:30 p.m., according to the Department of Public Safety.Troopers said the man was in his truck after being involved in a minor wreck when second vehicle smashed into his truck. The pickup driver, who has not been identified, died.  According to television stations KPRC and KTRK, the driver involved in the second wreck was suspected of being drunk at the time.  No other information was immediately available.

Teen dies after crashing into flatbed truck near Kingwood

HOUSTON – A teenage driver was killed Tuesday (February 14, 2012) night after crashing into the back of a disabled flatbed truck in northeast Harris County.  Harris County Sheriff’s deputies said a flatbed truck was traveling north on the Eastex Freeway at North Park Plaza when the truck got a flat tire around 11 p.m.  The truck driver was trying to move the truck from the center lane to the shoulder when an 18-year-old speeding in a Toyota 4Runner slammed into the back of the flatbed, according to deputies.  The teen was pinned inside the Toyota until he was pried out by heavy rescue. He was transported to LBJ Hospital, where he later died.   The driver of the flatbed was not hut.

Train, rig collide in southeast Houston

A freight train collided with an 18-wheeler truck this afternoon in southeast Houston, authorities said.  The train struck the rig about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday (February 14, 2012) along the 2500 block of Galveston near the 610 South Loop, Houston police said.  The force of the impact apparently split the truck cab from the trailer, officials said.  Houston police were continuing to investigate later in the day.

Proposed Interim Redistricting Maps Released

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott today issued the following statement on the proposed interim redistricting maps for Texas’ 2012 elections:

“The proposed maps minimize changes to the redistricting plan passed by the Legislature and, as the U. S. Supreme Court required, makes changes only where necessary. The Texas Attorney General’s Office has worked with a wide range of interest groups to incorporate reasonable requests from all parties to the extent possible without compromising the will of the Texas Legislature. Even though these proposed interim maps aren’t fully supported by all interest groups, modifications have been incorporated based on requests made by all parties. Today’s maps should allow the court to finalize the interim redistricting maps in time to have elections in April,” Attorney General Abbott said.

The proposed House and Congressional interim redistricting maps are the result of an agreement between the State of Texas and the Texas Latino Redistricting Task Force – which includes Texas LULAC, MALDEF, GI Forum, Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, Domingo Garcia, The Mexican American Bar Association of Texas, and La Fe Policy Research and Education Center. The proposed Congressional interim redistricting map is also supported by Congressman Henry Cuellar.

Although the Mexican American Legislative Caucus (MALC), the Black Legislative Caucus and the NAACP have not agreed to support the proposed maps, those maps include modifications that address some of the primary concerns those plaintiffs raised during negotiations with the State.

 

1 million birth control pill packets recalled, may not prevent pregnancy

Pfizer said on Tuesday it was recalling about a million packets of birth control pills in the United States because they may not contain enough contraceptive to prevent pregnancy.

 

            "As a result of this packaging error, the daily regimen for these oral contraceptives may be incorrect and could leave women without adequate contraception, and at risk for unintended pregnancy," according to a Pfizer statement on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration website.

Pfizer found that some packets of the drugs had too many active tablets, while others had too few.

 

            Oral birth control products use a series of 21 drug tablets and 7 inactive sugar tablets to regulate the menstrual period while providing contraception. The birth control pills posed no health threat to women, Pfizer said, but it urged consumers affected by the recall to "begin using a non-hormonal form of contraception immediately." The drugmaker said the issue involved 14 lots of Lo/Ovral-28 tablets and 14 lots of Norgestrel and Ethinyl Estradiol tablets.

 

            A company spokeswoman said the problem was caused by both mechanical and visual inspection failures on the packaging line, The Associated Press reported. She said the problem has been corrected.  The pills were manufactured by Pfizer and marketed by Akrimax Pharmaceuticals and shipped to warehouses, clinics and retail pharmacies nationwide, the company said.

Houston City Counsel Delays Vote on Red Light Cameras for Two Weeks

The Houston City Council Wednesday put off a vote for two weeks on a proposed settlement with the company that operated the city’s controversial red light cameras -- and that could jeopardize the agreement, says the attorney for American Traffic Solutions.

Radio station KUHF reports that the council may have been influenced by the two brothers who have led opposition to the cameras. Michael and Paul Kubosh pointed out that their federal court challenge to the referendum that overturned the cameras is still awaiting a judgment in federal court. delay

ATS attorney George Hittner said that delay puts the $4.79 million settlement -- what the city has agreed to pay the company to end any litigation and remove the cameras -- at risk, a concern Mayor Annise Parker dismissed.

What do you think about the red light cameras?  Let us know.

 

Houston, Texas Settles Red Light Camera Lawsuit

Houston, Texas Settles Red Light Camera Lawsuit

 

The city of Houston, Texas announced Friday that it would pay American Traffic Solutions (ATS) $4.8 million to settle the lawsuit the company set up after voters rejected red light cameras in November 2010. Upon approval by the city council Wednesday, the Arizona firm will receive $2.3 million up front with another $2.4 million provided as the company collects on unpaid citations over the next three years.

ATS was able to extract this sum from the city for two reasons. First, former Mayor Bill White removed an early termination clause from the red light camera contract in an attempt to save the camera program through the year 2014 in the event the state legislature passed legislation outlawing cameras. As a result, ATS demanded the share of ticket profits it would have received through that date. Second, ATS had an ally in US District Court Judge Lynn N. Hughes, who overturned the election results and sided with ATS at every step. For example, when ATS lawyer Andy Taylor complained in a November 26, 2010 hearing that the city required ATS to take down its cameras, Hughes came to the rescue.

"I can cure that," Hughes said, ordering the city to keep the cameras up.

The city council did have the power to stop the red light cameras from issuing tickets, so it ordered the systems deactivated on August 24, 2011. Houston came back to Hughes asking him to modify his order so that the cameras could be permanently removed, pursuant to a city ordinance requiring them to come down.

"The city of Houston's motion to compel American Traffic Solutions to remove the red light cameras is denied," Hughes ruled on January 16, 2012.

Hughes has close ties with ATS, having served on the bench for 25 years with Judge David Hittner, the father of ATS General Counsel George Hittner. His ruling is now under review by the Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals which heard oral arguments on January 3. Randall Kubosh and Francis M. Kubosh sponsored the anti-camera initiative and want to see the public vote upheld.

"Appellants argue that the Texas Election Code protects the right of Texas voters to intervene in defense of a measure election, a right subverted by the city's collusive filing of a declaratory judgment suit that gave ATS an opportunity to nullify the Proposition 3 election it would never have had without the city's help," the Kubosh attorney David A. Furlow argued in a Friday filing with the Fifth Circuit. "Denial of their right to defend the Proposition 3 election and the no-red-light-camera votes they cast in it would render their constitutional rights meaningless."

Houston and ATS came to a quick settlement in the hopes that this appeal would be dismissed as moot. Current Mayor Annise Parker insisted the multi-million dollar payment represents the best deal that could have been struck under the circumstances.

"I am thankful that traffic violators, not Houston taxpayers, will be paying for this," Parker said in a statement. "This is a reasonable settlement and I thank the city legal department for its diligence in getting it done."