Sandra Jacobson, convicted on nine counts related to the Jan. 28, 2009 traffic deaths of two women taking a cab to Denver International Airport, today was sentenced to 36 years in prison.
Jacobson, whose BAC was estimated at more than three times the legal limit when her truck hit a cab causing the deaths of librarians Kate McClelland, 71, and Kathy Krasniewicz, 54, and injuring cabdriver Nejmudean Abdusalam, was convicted in April.
Jacobson was handcuffed and wearing a orange and white jail uniform during the sentencing hearing. She was led out of the Denver District Courtroom by deputies and will later be taken to a Department of Corrections diagnostic center and then to prison.
Prosecutors alleged that a drunken Jacobson sped along at more than 80 mph, lost control of her pickup, swerved across two lanes, clipped the van and drove off.
Jacobson first told police that she’d downed cold medicine, and then insisted she was sober and driving the speed limit, momentarily lost control of her truck after her dog went for a Cheeto — possibly because the unseen taxi crashed into her — but never realized she’d made contact with another vehicle.
In Jacobson’s version of events, she stopped a short time later at Denver International Airport to ship a puppy to her brother in Texas, then downed a “road pop” she’d inadvertently left in her truck days earlier. That road pop was a bottle of Vitamin Water laced with 99-proof banana schnapps.
A jury found her guilty on two counts of vehicular homicide for the deaths of McClelland and Krasniewicz, and on two counts of careless driving causing death. She also was found guilty on a count of third-degree assault and a count of careless driving causing injury for the harm suffered by the cabdriver, guilty of two counts of leaving the scene of an accident. Guilty of drunken driving.
