OAKLAND — At around 2:20 a.m. on March 12, an El Cerrito man named Nipun Ajmani allegedly crashed a Honda on the MacArthur Maze into a stalled BMW, killing his 36-year-old passenger.
But according to police, a short time before the crash, Ajmani, 42, had been stopped at a DUI checkpoint, not as a driver but as a passenger. After determining Ajmani was drunk, police gave him a ride to Berkeley, but a short time later Ajmani ended up behind the wheel, according to the California Highway Patrol.
Now, Ajmani has been charged with murder and being held in Santa Rita Jail in Dublin on a no-bail hold.
The bizarre sequence of events, laid out in a probable cause statement written by police, starts at the DUI checkpoint, in Oakland, where Ajmani was a passenger.
Police said they detained the driver of the car Ajmani was riding in and asked Ajmani if he was sober enough to drive. They had him blow in a breathalyzer test, and after reading the results — which registered Ajmani’s blood-alcohol level at twice the legal limit — gave him a ride to his business in Berkeley.
After being dropped off, on the 1000 block of University Avenue in Berkeley, Ajmani and 36-year-old Zeeshan Khan allegedly got into the Honda and headed to the freeway. A few minutes later, the Honda crashed, killing Khan on impact and injuring Ajmani enough that he required hospitalization, according to court records.
Ajmani was formally arrested at Highland Hospital later that morning, and transferred to Santa Rita Jail about 24 hours after the crash. The Alameda County District Attorney charged him with drunk driving, as well as one count each of murder and manslaughter.
Under state law, prosecutors can get a murder conviction in drunk driving crashes if they prove the defendant was intoxicated and knew what he or she was doing was dangerous to human life. If Ajmani is convicted of both murder and manslaughter, he can only be sentenced for one of those charges, since there is one victim.
Ajmani is scheduled to enter a plea on April 28, according to court records.
Source: www.mercurynews.com