Victim’s Family Sues Rehab Facility

On November 24, 2012, just before 11:30 PM, a car struck Phillip Moreno with a drunk driver behind the wheel. Moreno was then dragged for two miles, stuck in the windshield of the vehicle. Concerned witnesses finally stopped the driver of the vehicle because they were concerned for the man stuck in the windshield. Moreno was ultimately transported to a nearby hospital where he eventually succumbed to his injuries. The driver, now identified as 51-year-old Sherri Lynn Wilkins, was a drunk and a heroin addict who had gotten sober in 2006. She went on to get a degree at Loyola Marymount University, and became the manager of a sober-living facility in Torrance, California. But on November 24 all of that changed.

When officers got to the scene Wilkins had a blood alcohol content of .17, more than twice the legal limit. After searching her car they found two mini bottles of Absolut Vodka, and a 40-ounce beer. They also found a receipt showing that all of those had been purchased earlier that evening. After tests were run it was reported that she had THC and benzodiazepine in her system. Before she ran over Moreno, Wilkins had two felony burglary charges on her record, so the DUI and hit-and-run charges would be considered her third strike.

During the trial Wilkins’s attorney tried to argue that Moreno had jumped in front of Wilkins’s car, and the she was scared and flustered, and that is why she did not pull over. He also argued that she had consumed the two bottles of vodka only minutes before, so she could not have been drunk yet, that the THC traces could have been from weeks ago, and the benzos were prescribed to her for her depression. In the end none of these arguments helped Wilkins as the jury found her guilty. She has been sentenced to life in prison for a DUI, and the hit-and-run that ultimately ended Phillip Moreno’s life.

Moreno’s family has now decided to file a lawsuit against the rehab facility where Wilkins was a drug and alcohol counselor. The family believes that the Twin Town Treatment Center was negligent in monitoring their counselor, and if they had been paying attention they would have noticed she had fallen off the wagon. As an additional interesting piece of this story, Wilkins told police officers that she was driving home from work the night she truck Moreno, but the facility denies that she had been working in the days leading up to her DUI.