An Adams County woman has been sentenced to 24 years in prison for a drunken driving crash that killed two people and sent two others to the hospital, judicial officials announced Tuesday.
Dusti Arensdorf, 43, pleaded guilty to two charges of vehicular homicide and three charges of vehicular assault in April, according to a news release from the 17th Judicial District Attorney’s Office.
The plea dropped multiple counts of reckless driving and driving under the influence from her case, according to court records.
On May 31, Broomfield District Court Judge Priscilla Loew sentenced Arensdorf to 24 years in the Department of Corrections followed by three years of parole.
The crash happened on northbound Interstate 25 between 144th Avenue and Colorado 7 around 10:15 p.m. on Oct. 6, 2023.
On Oct. 6, 2023, 71-year-old Shuangyue Chen and his son were changing their car’s flat tire while parked along the side of Interstate 25 in Broomfield, the news release stated.
Arensdorf was weaving in and out of traffic at more than 100 mph moments before she struck the family’s car and those standing outside it, the DA’s office said.
The crash killed Chen on impact and ejected his daughter-in-law — 35-year-old Yajing Liu — from the parked vehicle, the release stated. Liu was pronounced dead at the scene.
Liu’s husband, who is also Chen’s son, and Liu’s three-year-old son, who was inside the car, were both seriously injured but survived, the DA’s office said.
Witnesses noted the smell of alcohol on Arensdorf’s breath and the woman admitted to drinking “a couple of hard seltzers that night,” officials said in Tuesday’s release. At the hospital, her blood alcohol level was 0.343 — more than four times the legal limit of 0.08.
Arensdorf has three prior DUI convictions before this crash, according to court records.
“The defendant’s choices to drink and drive have completely destroyed an innocent family,” District Attorney Brian Mason stated in the release. “This was a horrific, unspeakable crime – and it was a horrific crime scene, that no one should have to see. A mother and a grandfather were taken from a small child as a result of the egregious actions of this defendant.”
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