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SANTA FE – A former Santa Fe surgeon on Thursday pleaded no contest to a DWI charge in district court as part of a plea agreement that will keep her from spending any more time in jail.
Deborah Aaron, 57, originally faced up to six years in prison on charges stemming from a Dec. 30 accident at the intersection of St. Francis Drive and Siringo Road that killed a 4-year-old girl.
Aaron, who spent three days in jail before being released and placed on an electronic monitoring device, was sentenced to the maximum for a first-time DWI offender by Judge Michael Vigil. She was ordered to serve one year probation, perform 24 hours community service, pay $241 in fines and attend DWI school in Arizona, where she now resides.
She was given credit for the mandatory 90-day jail sentence, since she’s worn the monitoring device for more than eight months. A vehicular homicide charge against her was dropped.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Doug Couleur told Judge Vigil that the prosecution agreed to the plea deal because he was not confident they could prove their case to a jury.
After the hearing, Couleur said, “The problem is we had two groups of eyewitnesses who were in approximately the same place at the same time and gave two completely different accounts.”
Couleur said accident reconstructions performed by police were inconclusive as to which driver was at fault. Witness accounts differed as to which driver may have run a red light.
Both Aaron and the victim’s family declined an opportunity to address the court.
Aaron’s attorney, Dan Cron, ushered her out of the courtroom immediately following the hearing and declined comment.
According to police reports, Aaron was traveling south on St. Francis Drive between 10:30 and 11 p.m. when the Range Rover she was driving T-boned a minivan driven by the girl’s mother, Karla Aremi Vasquez Rivera, who was making a left turn onto St. Francis from Siringo Road.
Yuliana Aremi Reyes Vasquez died in the wreck. Her mother and little sister, 3-year-old Yaretzi Yasmin Reyes Vasquez, were injured.
Aaron admitted to having two glasses of wine hours before the accident and failed to pass a field sobriety test, according to the police report. A blood sample showed Aaron’s blood-alcohol content at 0.08 – the presumed level of intoxication under New Mexico law.
In April, the deceased girl’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Aaron and State Farm Insurance. No hearing dates have been set.
— This article appeared on page C2 of the Albuquerque Journal
