Bruce “Caitlyn” Jenner could be charged with vehicular manslaughter for his role in a car crash earlier this year that left one woman dead and seven others injured.
According to the Los Angeles Times, L.A. County sheriff’s detectives will present evidence from the case to the district attorney’s office next week, at which time prosecutors will decide whether to charge Jenner with vehicular manslaughter.
A conviction on one count of vehicular manslaughter carries a sentence of up to one year in county jail.
Jenner was reportedly driving a Cadillac Escalade southbound on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu on February 7 when his car rear-ended a Lexus driven by 69-year-old Kim Howe, pushing it into oncoming traffic. A Hummer then crashed head-on into Howe’s car. The woman died at the scene.
L.A. County sheriff’s Det. Richard Curry told the Times that Jenner was driving under the speed limit, but at an unsafe speed for the road conditions the day of the crash.
Prosecutors will consider evidence collected over a six-month investigation, in which detectives reportedly viewed video footage of the accident and photographs taken by paparazzi. Detectives also spoke with Jenner family members and reviewed cellphone records and computer data from the vehicles.
A law enforcement source told TMZ that the report concludes that Jenner “set off a chain of events” that led to the fatal crash, adding that traffic had been stopped or had just stared moving again when Jenner’s Escalade struck Howe’s Lexus.
“He should have either been going 0 or just barely rolling,” the unnamed source told the outlet.
Det. Curry told Variety that the odds of Jenner being charged are “50/50,” because there was “nothing really egregious” in the case.
Howe’s four step-children filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Jenner in May. Jenner has sought to have the lawsuit dismissed, calling the incident a “terrible tragedy.”
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