DUI Driver Gets Murder Verdict

By ANN W. O’NEILL

July 31, 1996 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

VAN NUYS — A repeat drunk driver who sped down Sherman Way at more than 80 mph, rear-ended another car, then held a vanity mirror and dabbed at her face as the other driver screamed and burned to death in his car, was convicted Tuesday of second-degree murder.

A jury of six men and six women deliberated three days before finding that Susan Conkey Rhea, 39, had earned a murder conviction and stiff sentence by showing a disregard for human life in continuing to drink and drive.

“It shows the past is never far behind you,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Danette Meyers, who had argued that Rhea knew she might kill someone if she drove drunk.

Meyers told jurors that Rhea had failed to heed the lessons of alcohol education programs she took in connection with two previous drunk-driving convictions. Police found books from those classes in her wrecked car.

Rhea, a dark-haired former debutante who worked for a stockbroker in Beverly Hills, pressed manicured fingers to her eyes to block tears as the verdict was read. She faces 15 years to life in state prison when Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Bert Glennon Jr. sentences her Sept. 5.

The victim’s widow, Gloria Berumen, said through a Spanish interpreter that she hoped Rhea would receive the maximum sentence.

Meyers also said she would argue for a lengthy sentence to keep Rhea off the streets. She said she was sure that if released too soon, Rhea would drink, drive and kill someone else.

“This is a woman who drove off a cliff in Lake Tahoe and continued to drink and drive. Two of her DUIs were accidents. She doesn’t get the message. Until the sentence comes close to the offense, people aren’t going to start getting the message,” Meyers said.

During the trial, the prosecution and defense agreed that a terrible tragedy occurred when Jesus Berumen, 45, burned to death in his car at Sherman Way and Winnetka Avenue one minute before midnight Jan. 31, 1995.

Berumen, a father of four, was trapped in his Ford Tempo after it was rammed from behind by Rhea’s Lincoln Mark VII. Witnesses said the car was hurtling down Sherman Way with the lights off, at speeds estimated between 80 and 100 mph.

After the crash, Rhea’s blood-alcohol level registered .25; a driver is considered legally drunk with a blood alcohol level of .08.

“Ms. Rhea doesn’t own Sherman Way,” Meyers said. “It’s not her personal speedway. It’s not the Indy 500. It’s a public roadway.”

Witnesses said they could hear Berumen’s screams coming from the burning car. Meanwhile, they said, Rhea held a lighted compact and dabbed at her face. Whether she was fixing her mascara, as one witness surmised, or merely wiping the blood and glass from her face was disputed during the trial.

Nonetheless, witnesses agreed that Rhea made no attempt to rescue Berumen from his car. Fire paramedics used words like “belligerent,” “abusive” and “nasty” to describe her demeanor when they arrived.

And later, at a hospital emergency room, Rhea told police, her words laced with expletives: “You can’t arrest me. I’m a stockbroker. My attorney is Harland Braun. I’ll never go to jail.”

Braun, a noted criminal defense attorney, did represent Rhea early in the case, negotiating a plea bargain in which Rhea’s family would have paid Berumen’s widow $35,000 if prosecutors dropped the murder charge. But Meyers turned down the offer and Richard A. Hutton, a prominent drunk-driving defense lawyer, took the case.

In closing arguments last week, Hutton said his client suffered from bipolar disorder, commonly known as manic depression, as well as alcoholism. She’d checked herself into an alcohol treatment facility earlier that month.

But, Hutton said, she had been released three days before the accident, and had been given medication for her mental condition that reduced her ability to resist the temptation to drink.

In a manic state compounded by “involuntary intoxication,” Hutton said, his client didn’t have the mental state required to make decisions and suffered from a lapse in judgment.

But prosecutor Meyers pointed out that even on the day she checked out of the program, Rhea was ready to party with a man she’d met while undergoing treatment. As soon as she got out, Meyers said, Rhea purchased whiskey and beer, and the two drank so much that the man lost consciousness and was hospitalized.

Others in the rehabilitation program described Rhea as bossy, with a sense of entitlement that led some to nickname her “Princess.”

Meyers said the alcohol education programs Rhea attended after her drunk-driving convictions in 1988 and 1993 put her on notice that if she drank and drove, she could kill someone.

“She got into the car. She turned the key. She drove down Sherman Way,” Meyers told jurors. “How much more must society do to warn its members of the dangers of drinking and driving?”

Rhea, the prosecutor said, “thumbed her nose” at responsibility “when she took that first drink.”