Daughter's fatal crash leads to education effort

The parents of Jena Heidloff may never see anyone go to jail for giving the 17-year-old girl alcohol the night she died in a car crash two years ago. But the man charged with the crime will work with them to educate others about the dangers of drunken driving.

A King County District Court judge accepted a deal Thursday to sentence a young man to community service and a year of probation for supplying Heidloff with alcohol.

Heidloff, a competitive swimmer from Spanaway, died in August 2006 when she drove head-on into a tractor-trailer on Highway 18 near Auburn. State Patrol officers said she was driving the wrong way and speeding.

A toxicology report said her blood- alcohol level was 0.15 percent, nearly twice the legal limit.

Family members waited nearly two years for officers to find the people who bought Heidloff alcohol that night.

Nothing happened until July, when King County prosecutors charged Chaz Jones, 20, with supplying alcohol to a minor. Heidloff's parents said authorities told them Jones bought the alcohol with fake ID.

"In one way I'm glad it took more than two years for this to happen, because if it would have happened two years ago, the anger would have still been there," said Heidloff's stepfather, Joe Pallitto, before the judge Thursday afternoon.

"We also understand we can't look Chaz in the eye and say, 'You are 100 percent guilty of Jena's death.' Jena obviously had some part in it."

Jones, who was 18 at the time of the crash, has no prior criminal record. Given the circumstances, prosecutors agreed to hammer out a type of plea bargain.

The agreement, called a stipulated order of continuance, requires Jones to spend 80 hours working with Mothers Against Drunk Driving, attend an alcohol information school, and talk to a panel of people whose loved ones died in drunken-driving incidents.

In exchange, he will not be convicted of the charge a gross misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison. But he must stay out of trouble for a year to avoid being convicted later.

Before the judge approved the agreement Thursday, Heidloff's mother, Cherie Pallitto, spoke to the court about her loss. She and her husband have volunteered with Mothers Against Drunk Driving for the past year and a half, giving presentations at local high schools.

They said they'd welcome the opportunity to work with Jones to teach others not to drive under the influence.

"All we want is to be able to continue to talk with teenagers about the choices they make and what they're doing," Cherie Pallitto said. "To have Chaz join us in that process would be healing, because nothing is going to bring Jena back."

In court, Jones spoke quietly and emotionally about his role in Heidloff's death. He said at the time he didn't understand the potential consequences of underage drinking, but now he does.

"I would first just like to apologize to the family," Jones said. "I know it's been very hard."

He and Heidloff worked together at Wild Waves amusement park in Federal Way, where Heidloff started a job as a lifeguard the summer she died. Jones was one of the people Heidloff met up with in Seattle after sneaking out of her parents' house the night of her death.

Heidloff would have been a senior at Emerald Ridge High School.

The Pallittos and Greg Heidloff, Jena's father, worked with prosecutors to draft the conditions of the agreement.

Greg Heidloff said he didn't want Jones to go to jail. Neither would Jena, he said.

"I was a kid, too," Heidloff said. "I don't want to ruin his life."

Judge Corinna Harn said she hopes teens can learn from Jena Heidloff's accident and from the work Jones will do in the community.

"I think this is a good result to prevent another child of ours, another daughter of ours, from ending up in this situation," Harn said. "Without this, there will be another girl."

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Information from: The News Tribune, http://www.thenewstribune.com