Trial of Swede who totaled Ferrari begins
Trevor Michael Karney, 26, was arrested Wednesday after eluding police for more than a year. He was slapped with misdemeanor charges of drunken driving, resisting arrest and giving false information to a police officer, sheriff's officials said.
He is being held in lieu of $60,000 bail, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department's Web site.
Investigators said Karney fled to Ireland after the crash, then sneaked back into the U.S. through Mexico.
The other person police said was in the Ferrari Enzo, Bo Stefan Eriksson, pleaded no contest to a drunken driving charge in connection with the Feb. 21, 2006, crash. Eriksson, who also pleaded no contest to embezzling two other fancy cars and illegally possessing a gun, is serving a three-year prison sentence.
Authorities said the Ferrari was traveling at about 162 mph when it hit a pole.
11/08/06 The Swedish video game entrepreneur who wrecked a rare Ferrari by smashing it into a Malibu power pole at 260km/h has been sentenced to three years in state prison after he pleaded "no contest" to embezzling two other fancy cars and illegal possession of a firearm.
Bo Stefan Eriksson, 44, entered the pleas only four days after a Superior Court jury deadlocked in the case, bringing to an end a case that gained international notoriety after the spectacular crash on the Pacific Coast Highway.
Eriksson entered the pleas to two felony charges of embezzlement with the special allegation that the fraud exceeded $500 000 (about R3.7-million). He also pleaded no contest to a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm – a 357 Magnum handgun that authorities said they found when they searched his Bel-Air, California, home in March 2006.
Two other counts of grand theft auto were dismissed.
Prosecutor Tamara Hall said after the hearing "It was a fair resolution."
Alec Rose, one of Eriksson's attorneys, said: "There was a meeting of the minds; that's why there's a settlement."
11/03/06 A judge declared a mistrial Friday in the fraud and grand theft trial of a Swedish businessman whose 162-mph wreck in a classic Ferrari led to the charges alleging he stole two luxury sports cars. Jurors told Judge Patricia Schnegg they were deadlocked 10-2 in favor of convicting Bo Stefan Eriksson.
Eriksson, 44, was charged with two counts each of grand theft and fraudulent concealment with intent to defraud. Prosecutors said he stopped making payments on two luxury sports cars he had borrowed millions of dollars to lease and then tried to hide them.
Eriksson had previously pleaded no contest to a drunk driving charge in connection with the Feb. 21 crash that destroyed a rare Ferrari Enzo valued at $1.5 million.
He still faces trial on charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm _ a .357-Magnum handgun that authorities said they found when they searched his $6 million Bel-Air home in March.
Eriksson was not charged with stealing the red Enzo he smashed up on the Pacific Coast Highway but of taking a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren and a black Ferrari Enzo that prosecutors said he acquired in England through a series of sham transactions.
The defense acknowledged during the trial that Eriksson quit making payments on the cars late last year. But defense attorney Jim Parkman said he did so only after his company went broke, not because he intended to steal the cars. He had been an executive with now-defunct Gizmondo, a European videogame company.
10/23/06 A Swedish former videogame executive who set off an international investigation by destroying a rare Ferrari in Malibu was "living it up" with $4 million in stolen sports cars, a Los Angeles prosecutor said as his trial for car theft and embezzlement opened on Monday.
But lawyers for Bo Stefan Eriksson, a 44-year-old former executive with the now-bankrupt videogame company Gizmondo Europe, said during opening statements that while Eriksson was late on his payments on the three cars, he did not steal them.
Eriksson was speeding along the Pacific Coast Highway through Malibu in February at 160 mph (257 kph) when he smashed a $1 million Enzo Ferrari into a power pole, slicing the car in half. The crash exposed a high flying life of big spending, million-dollar homes, fast cars and burnt out businesses.
The Swedish national, who declared bankruptcy with more than $200 million in debt a month before the crash, pleaded no contest last week to driving under the influence of alcohol. He faces a separate trial on gun charges. More at Reuters