Orlando woman gets 10 years in DUI crash
Witnesses found Jessica McQueen lying in the grass outside the open driver’s door.
She was injured but conscious and talking, telling first responders that she was asleep in the back seat when the 2004 Jeep Liberty rolled and flipped through the median. She wasn’t driving, she insisted. But the only other occupant emergency crews could find was 22-year-old Shaun Pleima sitting unconscious and critically injured, still belted into the front-passenger seat.
He was flown to Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne, where he later died.
After more than a year of in- vestigating, troopers said they eventually gathered enough evidence to debunk McQueen’s story.
And now nearly four years after the crash, the 27-year-old Orlando woman is behind bars on charges of driving under the influence and DUI manslaughter.
McQueen pleaded guilty earlier
this month to the charges and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, court records state.
Her license was indefinitely suspended and a judge ordered she attend Alcoholic Anonymous classes and complete community service hours once she’s released from prison. Meanwhile, family and friends are still grieving the loss of Pleima, who was studying sports management at the University of Central Florida.
And they’re working with Mothers Against Drunk Driving to warn others of the dangers of drinking and driving.
“Shaun was a people person, kind, caring, would help anyone in need,” his mother, Rhonda Pleima, said. “He was the friend that was always there to help you move, or give you a ride, or a place to stay overnight. He had the biggest heart.”
Deadly decision
The day of the crash — June 29, 2012 — Pleima drove out to Cocoa Beach with a group of co-workers from Bahama Breeze, where he was a server with McQueen.
He was working there and as an IT tech at the apartment complex where he lived to help pay his way through school, his mom said.
Records show Pleima and McQueen were both drinking that day at the beach.
Both had a blood-alcohol level at the time of the crash of .14 — nearly double the legal limit for Florida drivers.
But it was McQueen who got behind the wheel of Pleima’s Jeep shortly after 11:30 p.m.
She headed west on State Road 528 and made it just past the exit for Pine Street when troopers said she started losing control. She veered off the road and into the grass median, crossing into the eastbound lanes.
The Jeep started rotating and McQueen overcorrected, troopers said. It then flipped several times, leaving gouges in the road before finally stopping facing east on the shoulder.
No one witnessed the actual crash, but several people drove up on it immediately after, reports state.
They told troopers that McQueen was outside the open driver’s door. The front passenger door was closed and the two rear doors were jammed shut.
She denied driving and the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office used a helicopter to unsuccessfully search nearby woods for another possible person.
Everything fit with McQueen driving, though.
The driver’s seat belt was pulled out as if someone had been wearing it during the crash, and the seat was moved forward for a small driver. McQueen is just 5 feet, 4 inches tall, while Pleima was over 6 feet, according to FHP.
Nearly a year later — while troopers were still investigating the fatal crash and before McQueen was arrested — she was found again behind the wheel of a smashed car smelling of alcohol, Cocoa police reports state.
Police determined the crash wasn’t her fault, but arrested her on charges of driving under the influence with property damage, according to an arrest report. Court records show she pleaded no contest and was sentenced to probation.
Matt Olszewski, managing partner with the Florida DUI Group, said McQueen’s second drunk-driving arrest most likely played a role in her 10-year prison sentence.
She faced a minimum of four and maximum of 15 years, and Olszewski said typically people get between seven and eight years for DUI manslaughter.
Pleima’s family said they miss him dearly.
“He had a passion for life, and wasn’t content to sit on the sidelines and watch life pass by,” his mom said.
Pleima wanted to participate “to the fullest,” she said.