Keansburg Woman Charged In NJ's First Texting-While-Driving Trial

KEANSBURG, NJ — A Keansburg woman is facing what may be the first homicide trial in the state that involves allegations of texting while driving, the Asbury Park Press reports.

Alexandra Mansonet, 50, maintains she was not texting, but checking her rear defogger.

As Patch reported at the time, the accident took place at 8:20 a.m. on Sept. 28, 2016 at the intersection of Laurel Avenue and Sixth Street in Hazlet. Mansonet was driving her Mercedes Benz south on Laurel Avenue when the car in front of her, driven by Robert Matich, 70, of Keansburg, slowed and stopped for a woman crossing in the crosswalk at Sixth Street.

However, because Mansonet never slowed down, she propelled into Matich's car, causing the Toyota Corolla to slam into the woman crossing the sidewalk, said police.

The woman, Yuwen Wang, 39, who lived in Hazlet, was rushed by helicopter to Robert Wood Johnson University Medical Center's Trauma Unit, where she died on October 3, 2016.

Police say that Mansonet was texting at the time and that's why she didn't notice the car in front of her had stopped. She says she was adjusting her rear defogger.

"Mansonet was using her cellular telephone while driving and made no observations of Matich's vehicle," Monmouth County Prosecutor Gramiccioni said when she was first charged. "Mansonet never activated her brakes and collided with the vehicle, causing it to cast forward and strike the victim."

Jury selection for her trial is currently underway at the Monmouth County courthouse in Freehold.

If convicted Mansonet is facing five to 10 years in prison.