Crime & Safety
Glendale Man Pleads Not Guilty in Valley Village Electrocution Deaths
A 20-year-old Glendale man pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges stemming from the deaths of two good Samaritans who stepped in water electrified by a toppled light pole when they rushed to the scene of a car crash he allegedly caused in Valley Village last summer.
Arman Samsonian entered his plea in Van Nuys Superior Court to a pair of vehicular manslaughter charges. He surrendered to authorities in October after the charges were filed.
According to police and prosecutors, he was recklessly driving an SUV that sheared a fire hydrant and toppled a light pole near the corner of Magnolia Boulevard and Ben Avenue last Aug. 22, creating a pool of electrified water.
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Stacey Lee Schreiber, 39, of Valley Village, and Irma Zamora, 40, of Burbank, were electrocuted when they stepped in the water while running to the scene of the crash.
Zamora was a passenger in a vehicle being driven by her husband behind the SUV that crashed, and Schreiber rushed out of her home to help Samsonian.
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A half-dozen other people suffered electrical burns, and five were hospitalized for a time. One of the injured was a patrol officer from the LAPD's North Hollywood station who suffered a shock through one of his boots, police said.
Samsonian's friend, Ashot Avanisian, said during the preliminary hearing last month that he and Samsonian were each shocked while trying to assist the two women.
A police detective who interviewed Samsonian while he was hospitalized said the young man told her he had gotten impatient because traffic was piling up, so he began driving in the center lane. He told police he had returned to the main lane and was going about 15 to 20 mph when he tried to turn.
Witnesses described Samsonian's vehicle as going faster than the traffic around it -- with one witness estimating that it was traveling at about 70 mph in what he believed was a 35 mph zone.
"It seemed very dangerous to assist," another witness, Alexander Hilhorst, testified about the aftermath of the crash. He noted that he heard some screeching sounds before the SUV went over the curb and struck a fire hydrant and a lamppost.
One woman said she was running to help at the scene when she heard her mother tell her to stop.
Samsonian's attorney, Andrew Flier, told the judge last month, "Clearly, based on this evidence, this is a tragic accident ... It's so unforeseeable that people are going to die from being electrocuted."
He argued that his client could not have reasonably foreseen the possibility of an electrified pool of water being created in a crash, while acknowledging that his client "might have been speeding."
Deputy District Attorney Ron Carey countered that Samsonian had been "speeding down a crowded road" and that it was reasonably foreseeable that someone might be injured if he was to crash on a street lined with power lines and light poles.
The judge sided with the prosecution, ordering Samsonian to stand trial.
"He was definitely driving negligently. He had a disregard for others ... He was driving in the left-turn lane so he could pass those cars ... He made a terrible turn," the judge said, noting that it was unclear if the two women who rushed to the scene could see that the power wires had fallen into water shooting from the fire hydrant.
--City News Service
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