Last Updated on January 10, 2019 by CCAR Staff
Riverside County prosecutors have filed new charges against a woman who was arrested on suspicion of causing a crash last year that injured two people in Eastvale — one of whom later died.
On Dec. 12, the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office charged Grace Christine Whitman, a 19-year-old Rancho Cucamonga woman, with gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated. She was arrested Jan. 8 in Los Angeles.
Whitman pleaded not guilty Thursday to that charge and a charge of driving under the influence of drugs causing injury. She also denied an enhancement of causing great bodily injury. Whitman is due back in court for a status conference Jan. 28. Whitman, who has hired a private attorney, remained jailed in lieu of $90,000 bail.
The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department had arrested Whitman months earlier, on June 4, after it said she ran a red light at Scholar Way while driving west on Schleisman Road. Her gray Subaru crashed into a black Toyota sedan that was driving south, investigators said.
Whitman was not injured in the crash, but the two people in the Toyota were hospitalized with major to life-threatening injuries.
She was booked then on suspicion of causing injury while driving under the influence of alcohol and causing injury while driving under the influence of alcohol with a blood alcohol content of over .08, according to jail records. Whitman was released from jail June 5.
The driver of the Toyota, a 28-year-old Eastvale resident, later died from her injuries, the Sheriff’s Department said in a Wednesday statement.
The Sheriff’s Department on Thursday declined to identify the woman or say when she died.
