Arrest made in death of Agoura teen

Krystin Shank Sean Michael Gittens of Thousand Oaks was arrested last week on felony charges of gross vehicular manslaughter in the Oct. 17, 2005 death of Agoura Hills resident Krystin Jean Shank, 18.

The arrest was made by the Ventura County District Attorney's office based on a grand jury indictment.

Monday, Gittens' lawyer was unsuccessful in having his client's $50,000 bail reduced. Gittens is being held at the county's main jail in Ventura.

According to police, Gittens, 18, was driving his 1996 Ford Explorer southbound on Westlake Boulevard when he lost control of the vehicle. The SUV jumped the median and hit an oak tree in the center divider. Shank, a passenger in Gittens' car, was killed on impact.

"It was a tragic accident," said Gittens' lawyer, Angeline Gates. "It took the life of his girlfriend."

In addition to the felony charge, the district attorney's office has charged Gittens with reckless driving and driving with a suspended license. At the time of the accident, Gittens was on probation for a juvenile offense and was wearing an electronic ankle bracelet, police said.

The charges, nearly a year after the accident, "took a long time because of various matters that needed to be investigated involving certain aspects of the case," said Arthur Norris, the deputy district attorney handling the case.

Although the district attorney's office originally planned to charge Gittens with gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, Norris said the D.A. has opted to not move forward with those charges. He said that because the case has not yet gone to trial, he would not say why the D.A. didn't pursue more serious charges.

If convicted, Gittens faces a maximum sentence of three years in state prison.

Norris said Gittens will be back in front of a judge in mid October for a pretrial conference.

The meeting is supposed to give attorneys for both parties an opportunity to settle the case out of court, but Norris said his office won't accept anything less than the maximum sentence.

"We're not going to offer him any type of a plea bargain," Norris said.

A 2005 graduate of Westlake High School, Gittens has an extensive record of behind-thewheel infractions.

Between September 2004 and May 2005, he had five moving violations-one of which was for speeding. Less than a month before the accident in which Shank died, Gittens had received a dismissal of a June 2005 speeding violation.

In July of this year, he crashed a Honda Civic into a tree at the corner of Via Ricardo and Borchard Road in Thousand Oaks, police said. According to the police, there was another passenger in the car, but no one was injured.