VENTURA : Judge Finally Takes Case Others Rejected

The probation-violation case of a Somis woman who killed three young men was bounced around to three Ventura County courtrooms Friday before a judge finally agreed to take it.

And that jurist, Superior Court Judge Charles W. Campbell Jr., delayed the matter until June 23.

In a widely publicized case that went as high as the U.S. Supreme Court, Diane Mannes was placed on five years’ probation after pleading guilty to three counts of vehicular manslaughter last August. Prosecutors now accuse her of violating that probation by not attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and doctoring attendance sheets to conceal her absence.

She was scheduled to appear Friday on the probation-violation charge before acting Superior Court Judge Herbert Curtis III. But Curtis sent the case to Judge James McNally, who had sentenced Mannes.

McNally, however, told court officials he did not want to hear it because he no longer is assigned to felony cases.

Campbell accepted it but granted a defense motion to delay the hearing for seven weeks.

The confusion about who would hear the matter did not sit well with Linda Oxenreider, whose 19-year-old son, Joshua, was struck and killed when Mannes’ car swerved off the Ventura Freeway’s Conejo Grade.

“It makes for more delays,” she said. “I’ve waited for five years to get some kind of justice for Josh.”

Mannes served about two years in prison for a felony drunk-driving conviction in connection with injuring two boys in the group. But she never served any time for killing the three boys. A Ventura County jury deadlocked on three counts of second-degree murder.

Prosecutors were then blocked from retrying the murder case by a federal court, which said a trial judge’s comment that there was insufficient evidence to support a verdict of murder constituted an acquittal. Mannes eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter in exchange for a promise of probation.

Prosecutors say Mannes should now be sent back to prison. “I’m sure prison will make it easier for her to attend AA,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Kevin G. DeNoce said.

Deputy Public Defender Robert A. Dahlstedt could not be reached for comment.