Nobel prize winner to do jail time

A Nobel Prize-winning physicist whose need for speed ended tragically on Highway 101 near Orcutt will be sentenced Monday to eight months in Santa Barbara County Jail for causing a fatal accident.

John Robert Schrieffer pleaded no contest July 25 to felony vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence for plowing his Mercedes-Benz into a Toyota van carrying eight people on Sept. 25, killing one person and injuring seven others.

The 74-year-old resident of Tallahassee, Fla. also admitted to a criminal enhancement of causing great bodily injury to three other passengers in the van. He agreed to serve the 240 days in jail - without the option of house arrest - along with five years felony probation.

"I drove a car with gross negligence that resulted in an accident where another person was killed," reads a statement on the plea deal Schrieffer signed.

Schrieffer was driving solo in his new sports car along Highway 101 from San Francisco to visit Santa Barbara, where he once worked as a professor.

He struck a van while driving more than 100 mph, said Deputy District Attorney Robert Mestman, who prosecuted the case.

Passenger Renato Catolos of Ridgecrest was ejected from the van and killed in the accident, Mestman said. Three other passengers - Eusebia Estrada, Lourdes DeMeo and Rudy Estrada were all seriously injured in the accident, he said.

Another vehicle occupant, Amparo Mangapit, was injured in the accident and died about a month later, Mestman said. However, it remains in dispute if injuries suffered in the accident contributed to her death.

Three others, driver Susan Yap and passengers Conrado Mangapit and Estelita Catolos received minor-to-moderate injuries in the accident.

The van full of friends and extended family members - all from Ridgecrest in Kern County - were on their way to the Chumash Casino after visiting friends in Guadalupe, Mestman said.

The accident shut down one lane of southbound traffic on a busy Friday night as the California Highway Patrol, firefighters, paramedics and police extricated the victims and investigated the scene.

Schrieffer initially told investigators that he was a victim in the accident, and that a truck hauling a trailer had clipped his car and the van, according to the CHP.

That story was never corroborated, and Schrieffer eventually admitted inventing the truck, Mestman said, adding that the defendant eventually expressed remorse for his actions.

Schrieffer had nine prior speeding tickets, and was driving on a suspended license at the time of the accident, Mestman said.

"He was already on notice that his driving was dangerous and unlawful," Mestman said.

If the case had gone to trial, Schrieffer could have faced 15 years in prison.

Schrieffer could not be reached for comment on Friday. His attorney, Roger Lytel of Santa Barbara, declined comment.

Stacy King, an attorney in San Diego, represents survivors of the accident in separate wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits against Schrieffer. The civil case will return to court in Santa Maria Wednesday.

King said she was more interested in her case against Schrieffer than the man's pedigree.

"I don't really care who he is," King said. "I wouldn't care if he's the president, I'd still sue him."

Schrieffer's civil attorney, Julia Azrael, did not return phone calls on Friday.

Most recently employed as a professor at Florida State University and chief scientist of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Schrieffer worked as a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara from 1980 to 1991.

According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Schrieffer shared the 1972 Nobel Prize for Physics for developing the first successful microscopic theory of superconductivity.

Victim Renato Catolos, a 57-year-old warehouse manager at General Dynamics near his home in Ridgecrest, is survived by three grown children and his wife, crash survivor Estelita Catolos.

Quintin Cushner can be reached at 739-2217 or qcushner

@santamariatimes.com.

Aug. 6, 2005