A 27-year-old woman who pleaded guilty in connection with the death of her former landlord, who fell off the hood of a minivan the woman was driving at a Mountain View intersection, was sentenced this week to four years in state prison.
The sentence Superior Court Judge Dwayne Moring handed down to defendant Brooklyn Broadway on Thursday draws to an end a case that took a circuitous route — including a judge dismissing murder charges and the case later used in a legal challenge related to a special court designed for defendants with serious mental illness.
Broadway, who had been an active-duty member of the Navy based in San Diego at the time of the 2023 incident, pleaded guilty in January to gross vehicular manslaughter and hit-and-run causing serious injury or death.
Authorities said last year that newlyweds Broadway and her husband had had an argument with Angelica “Gel” Wuerth, 32, in an alley near Ocean View Avenue on the evening of Nov. 10, 2023.
Wuerth ended up on the hood of the Toyota Sienna minivan he couple was in. She stayed there as Broadway’s husband drove and eventually stopped in the lot of a nearby Home Depot shopping center.
The couple recorded the encounter, and court documents indicate that Wuerth remained on the hood even as it was stopped for more than 90 seconds.
The couple switched places, with Broadway jumping into the driver’s seat. Wuerth stayed on the hood, and the cellphone camera kept rolling. On the video, the couple is “exclaiming that they don’t want to hurt the victim,” Broadway’s attorney Brandon Naidu said last year.
When Broadway stopped for a light at nearby 45th Street, Wuerth fell from the hood. The couple drove off.
Wuerth died the next day. The couple was arrested less than a week later and charged with murder.
After hearing evidence during a two-day preliminary hearing the following year, a San Diego Superior Court judge dismissed the murder charges. Broadway’s husband was free to go, but Broadway still faced vehicular manslaughter and hit-and-run.
When Broadway pleaded guilty earlier this year, there was no plea deal in place with prosecutors. The judge who took Broadway’s plea said he would allow her to be screened for suitability for Behavioral Health Court, a program offered to a small fraction of criminal defendants with mental illness.
The District Attorney’s Office, which for months had been asking the judge overseeing that specialized court to rescue herself, opposed the attempt to let Broadway into the program.
The District Attorney’s Office elevated the judicial battle to the appeals court, using two cases as part of their argument — one of which was Broadway’s case. In court documents, they argued that the judge had admitted “inappropriate participants” into the specialized court.
The appeals court eventually said the judge overseeing Behavioral Health Court had to step aside in the Broadway case. Last month, a different judge found Broadway was not a suitable candidate for Behavioral Health Court, and Broadway was returned to Moring’s court to be sentenced.
Deputy District Attorney Malak Behrouznami said Thursday the office had been “fighting for justice every step of the way.”
“Even though it was an uphill battle, we kept fighting,” she said, “and we had the support of our administration every step of the way.”
“In a statement provided to the Union-Tribune, District Attorney Summer Stephan said, “The court imposed a just sentence, and I’m proud of the work of Deputy DA Malak Behrouznami in assuring that there is accountability for criminal conduct.”
Naidu, the defense attorney, had lobbied to have client Broadway join Behavioral Health Court. “It was very, very apparent from the onset of this case, and her mental health was a prime factor in this case,” he said Thursday. He said his client had been “diagnosed with one of the most severe forms of PTSD, stemming from a lifelong history of unrelenting trauma and abuse.”
Naidu said his client spent nearly a year sitting in jail waiting on the appeals process in a “fight that wasn’t really our fight.”
“We got caught in the middle of a judicial challenge,” he said. But, he added, his client spent that time “really reflecting” on the case. He said she accepts the sentence she received as fair, and she wants to reach out to the victim’s family to apologize.