TORRANCE, Calif. — A woman accused of killing four people, including a 6-year-old boy, while running her car into pedestrians outside a California church appeared in court Friday cuffed to a gurney and pleaded not guilty to vehicular manslaughter charges.
An attorney for Margo Bronstein, 56, entered the plea on her behalf to four counts of gross vehicular manslaughter and one count of driving under the influence of a drug causing injury.
Bronstein was wheeled into court on the gurney by two attendants from an ambulance company. She was propped up with pillows and spoke only to her lawyer.
A judge ordered her held on $500,000 bail, the amount requested by prosecutors.
Bronstein's attorney Jeffrey Gray told the judge the collision appeared to be an accident, not intentional.
Outside court, Gray urged people not to jump to conclusions, noting the result of toxicology tests were not yet available and the cause of the incident was still unclear.
He said possibilities such as a malfunction of her specially equipped car, which has hand-controlled brakes, or an adverse reaction to her prescribed medication had not been ruled out.
"My concern is there tends to be a lot of, almost a mob mentality about this case," Gray said. "It's a tragedy. It's not fair to Miss Bronstein, it's not fair to the decedents' families to speculate as to happened."
