A Bloomington man pleaded guilty Wednesday to criminal vehicular homicide for a two-vehicle crash on March 8 that killed 34-year-old Erin C. Randall.
Neftali P. Ramirez will be sentenced Aug. 19 in Dakota County District Court. State guidelines call for a four-year prison sentence.
Ramirez, 26, admitted to medics that he was drunk as they took him to the hospital shortly after 2 a.m. . He had crashed into Randall's car as she was stopped at a red light on Nicollet Avenue at Hwy. 13 in Burnsville.
Randall's car went down an embankment and landed in reeds near a holding pond. She died at the scene. The driver's side of her car was severely damaged and the gas tank ruptured. Ramirez's car was nearby and the roof had to be removed to get him out.
Randall, of Richfield, was a Fulbright scholar to Bangladesh in 2007 and was a recent past president of the Minnesota chapter of the Fulbright Association. She worked as a staff researcher for the Wilder Foundation and other social-justice organizations.
Ramirez told medics he had been drinking whiskey and beer at a Bloomington bar. At the hospital, he told a state trooper he was heading home to Bloomington from a friend's home in Savage. His blood alcohol level was 0.25 percent, more than three times the legal limit.
Pat Pheifer
