A Maple Grove woman who drove her car into a St. Louis Park pond last year near a highway entrance, an incident that killed two children and hospitalized three other youngsters, will serve 30 days in the workhouse.
Marion Guerrido, 24, pleaded guilty Wednesday to misdemeanors of not having a driver's license and failing to have a child in the proper seat restraint. A third misdemeanor charge of driving without insurance was dropped. Guerrido also will serve one year's probation.
Guerrido was charged in May by the St. Louis Park city attorney after the Hennepin County attorney's office declined in March to file felony charges against Guerrido. She was not drinking, speeding, using a cellphone or doing anything else that would have constituted a felony crime, County Attorney Mike Freeman noted at the time.
About 7 a.m. on Nov. 21, 2013, Guerrido was driving with the five children, all from a blended family, when she lost control on a wet ramp from westbound Hwy. 7 to northbound Hwy. 100.
The car came to rest in a retention pond. Guerrido climbed out of the car uninjured and tried to rescue the children under the surface in the 9-foot-deep pond.
Drowned were Guerrido's 7-year-old son, Alarious Coleman-Guerrido, and her boyfriend's 5-year-old daughter, Zen'Avia Rennie. The surviving children were ages 1, 5 and 6 at the time of the crash.
A State Patrol investigation found Guerrido apparently overcorrected her steering on the slippery ramp.
Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482
