Fatal 2007 Oswego Crash: Sandra Vasquez On Work Release

OSWEGO, IL — An Aurora woman sentenced to 15 years in prison for a 2007 DUI crash that killed five teenagers in Oswego was transferred Thursday from prison to a work-release program.

Sandra Vasquez, now 37, was convicted in 2010 of aggravated drunken driving and reckless homicide in the crash, which devastated the Oswego community.

On Feb. 11, 2007, Vasquez was driving the teens home from a party with nine people packed into her sedan when the car veered off Route 31 and struck a utility pole, killing four of the high schoolers — Matthew Frank, 17; Katherine Merkel, 14; Jessica Nutoni, 15; and Tiffany Urso, 16 — on impact. James McGee, 14, died in the hospital seven days later.

Three others teens, along with Vasquez, were injured in the crash. All the passengers were students at Oswego High School.

Vasquez, then 23, had the eight teenagers in her five-seat Infiniti sedan as they left a party in Boulder Hill, according to police.

Vasquez was later found to have been drinking. Her blood alcohol content was estimated to have been between 0.114 and 0.144, above the legal 0.08, the Illinois Appellate Court said in 2012.

RELATED: Appellate Court Upholds Vasquez' 15-Year Sentence

A Kendall County judge sentenced Vasquez to 15 years in state prison, plus two years of mandatory supervised release. She was charged with 16 counts of aggravated driving under the influence and five counts of reckless homicide, one for each teen who was killed in the wreck.

Vasquez was coming from a party hosted by one of her cousins at a home in an unincorporated Boulder Hill subdivision owned by her aunt. Vasquez said one of the passengers in the car asked her for a ride, after which the others piled in as well, according to the Daily Herald.

She had been serving her sentence at the Decatur Correctional Center and has been transferred to the Fox Valley Adult Transition Center for the work-release program, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections. The facility is Illinois's only female work-release center.

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