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Guilty Plea Entered In Fatal Drunk Driving Crash

It's been more than a year since a crash killed a Baltimore County woman and crippled a professional soccer star.  In federal court Tuesday, the woman who was drunk at the wheel entered a guilty plea.  Derek Valcourt spoke with the victim's mother about the crash and the drunk driver she blames.

The World Cup soccer tournament came and went without rising US soccer star Charlie Davies.  What started as a fun night out with two friends ended with a drunk driving crash that split an SUV into two pieces, left Davies with crippling injuries and killed 22-year-old University of Maryland graduate Ashley Roberta, who attended Baltimore's Mercy High School and grew up in Phoenix, Maryland.

"That night changed our life forever," said Ashley's mother, Jan Roberta.

Roberta will never forget October 13, 2009.  Early that morning, her daughter and Charley Davies were riding with 23-year-old Maria Espinoza of Clarksville.  The three had just left a DC nightclub and were heading south on the George Washington Parkway when a drunk Espinoza lost control of her SUV and slammed into a guardrail, mangling Davies' body and killing Roberta instantly.

"It's devastated our family.  We'll never be the same.  The pain is so great,  you can't even explain it by words and it was caused by Maria Espinoza driving drunk," Roberta said.

Espinoza was barely injured.  Her blood alcohol level was at .13.  Tuesday in a federal court in Alexandria, she pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter and maiming someone while driving intoxicated.

It's a guilty plea Roberta hopes others will learn from.

"I think that will help a little bit knowing that maybe it will save someone else.  They'll think twice before they'll get into a car after they have been drinking," she said.

Espinoza faces up to eight years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines when she's sentenced by the judge on February 18.

Davies has returned to playing soccer in practice matches.  Davies and Roberta's family are considering filing civil lawsuits against Espinoza.

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