Toyota in fatal 2006 St. Paul crash gets a new look

A heavily damaged 1996 Toyota Camry sitting for years in the St. Paul police impound lot may hold the key to whether Koua Fong Lee serves the remainder of his eight-year prison sentence or whether he goes free in the coming weeks or months.

The car could be examined in the next week or two.

Lee, 32, of St. Paul, has maintained since the fateful afternoon of June 10, 2006, that he pumped the brakes again and again, trying to stop the car as it accelerated up a freeway exit ramp.

Accident reconstructionists said Lee was going anywhere from 75 to 90 miles per hour when he slammed into the rear of a sedan stopped at a red light, ultimately killing three people and seriously injuring two. The city of St. Paul's chief mechanic, who examined Lee's car after the accident, said the brakes were working properly.

Attorneys for Lee and for the victims' families now say they believe it was a case of unexpected sudden acceleration, which has made international headlines lately because of problems with other Toyota vehicles. They hope to have their own experts examine Lee's car next week or the week after.

"I believe we're going to be able to produce evidence that this was a rapid acceleration case," said Brent Schafer, Lee's criminal defense attorney. "Unfortunately, lots of people have complained of sudden acceleration and have taken their cars into Toyota and they found nothing wrong."

A search of the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) database shows that 524 people have complained about problems in 1996 Camrys. Of those, at least 20 involved sudden acceleration. Often, no mechanical explanations were found.

Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Phil Carruthers said Eichhorn-Hicks contacted him and asked that the vehicle be preserved so another examination could be done.

Then, the Lee family retained another attorney -- Schafer -- and Eichhorn-Hicks' involvement in the case ended. Schafer said he hadn't heard about the claims of the retired attorney until a reporter contacted him Friday.

James Cook, who has been in the auto mechanics business for 50 years, said sudden acceleration can result when a car's engine goes into a state of uncontrolled combustion. In that case, the torque can easily overpower the braking system.

He has not examined Lee's Camry but said, "from a professional standpoint, it definitely requires another visit, a much more analytical visit given what we know of cars today."

When Lee was convicted of criminal vehicular homicide in October 2007, few people had heard about the sudden-acceleration and other problems in multiple Toyota models that prompted a recall of 8.5 million vehicles worldwide beginning last fall.

"If Mr. Lee is innocent, nobody wants him sitting in prison," Carruthers said Friday.

Lee was driving his family home from their Minneapolis church that afternoon in June. According to testimony, he was traveling about 55 mph as he took the Snelling Avenue exit ramp off eastbound Interstate 94 in St. Paul. But instead of slowing down, the car sped up.

Lee sideswiped several cars before crashing into an Oldsmobile Ciera driven by Javis Adams Sr., 33. Adams and his 10-year-old son, Javis Jr. (J.J.), were killed. His niece, Devyn Bolton, was left a quadriplegic and died at age 7 in October 2007. Adams' father, Quincy Adams, and Javis Jr.'s sister, Jasmine, were injured.

Prosecutors said, and Eichhorn-Hicks conceded, that Lee probably hit the accelerator instead of the brakes.

"We had nothing else," Eichhorn-Hicks said. "But it never made any sense. He swore up and down he didn't hit the accelerator, he hit the brake. The family said he was yelling, 'The brakes don't work! The brakes don't work!'"

Attorney Michael Padden is representing the victims' family as they explore a lawsuit against Toyota. He said the family supports digging for more evidence.

"The family's impetus is discovering the truth," he said.