Underage drunken driver gets light sentence nearly 4 years after crash maimed passenger

Judge: '(Do) You realize you are the luckiest person in the courthouse today?'

SAN ANTONIO – It took nearly four years, but a woman who was severely injured by a drunken driver finally had her day in court Monday.

But the sentence the defendant received wasn't exactly the justice Peyton Grasso was hoping for.

"Your decision to drive after drinking almost took my life. That's your crime," a teary-eyed Grasso said while reading her victim impact statement in court. "Assault is not an accident. Drinking and driving is not an accident. Somehow you still don't get it."

Grasso was critically injured and lost her leg in a crash in the early-morning hours of June 15, 2014. She had spent the night at a party drinking with friends, including Kaley Medina, who ended up leaving the party in Grasso's car. Both girls were well under the legal age to drink.

"Kaley made the choice for both of us that she would get behind the wheel of my car without a driver's license or permit and no one's permission but her own, with a blood alcohol (level) over the legal limit, speeding at 122 mph," Grasso said as she read from her prepared statement.

Medina lost control and the car flipped and hit a metal pole. Grasso was trapped inside and had to be cut out from the mangled metal. She spent eight days in a coma and her leg was amputated.

"I lay awake at night and cry myself to sleep every night, thinking about what my life would be like today if I was still a whole human being," Grass told the court. "I get stared at everywhere I go, looks that hurt me down to my core."

Medina was also injured in the crash. She had a blood alcohol level of 0.12, nearly twice the legal limit, when her blood was drawn at the hospital. A second blood draw taken by Bexar County Sheriff's Office investigators four and half hours after the crash came back at 0.078, just below the legal limit.

Medina admitted to paramedics at the scene that she had been drinking and had been driving the car when it crashed.

Despite the details, the case sat on a Sheriff's Office deputy's desk for two and half years. It wasn't until The Defenders reported on the case in 2016 that it was finally sent to prosecutors.

Because of the long delay, the discrepancy in the blood evidence and other problems with the case, prosecutors were forced to compromise, offering Medina a plea deal instead of taking the case to trial.

Though originally charged with intoxication assault and one count of aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury and specifying the car as a deadly weapon, Medina pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of DWI.

After pleading guilty and accepting responsibility for her actions, Medina offered a tearful apology to Grasso.

"I am terribly sorry from the bottom of my heart to you, Peyton Grasso, and the entire Grasso family," Medina told the court. "This has been the hardest lesson to learn from and I'm sorry for the pain you have gone through."

Grasso said she understood the prosecutors had to offer the plea deal to get some measure of justice, but she wasn't happy about it, putting the blame on the Sheriff's Office investigator who mishandled her case.

"Your sentence is a mockery of the seriousness of your crime and the consequences of the pain I have been forced to endure," Grasso told Medina. "I stand here today feeling like justice has failed me."

The judge told Medina she was "the luckiest person in the courthouse" Monday due to the light sentence she received and urged her to learn from the ordeal and become a productive member of society.

In exchange for her guilty plea, Medina will serve two years of probation, have her license suspended for 90 days, pay a $1,000 fine and serve 100 hours of community service at the San Antonio Amputee Foundation.