Driver in fatal Uber crash charged with homicide
The 23-year-old man who fled the scene of the fatal Uber crash that killed three women in Milwaukee last weekend told a friend he had been driving drunk at the time, according to a criminal complaint released Thursday.
After Jasen Randhawa crashed a Lexus SUV into the Uber car, he and his passenger ran from the wreckage and got into a taxi, where Randhawa made similar statements, the complaint says. A recording system inside the cab captured him saying he left his keys inside the SUV he'd been driving "because I'm bleeding and I have a DUI and we just crashed the (expletive) out of it."
Randhawa planned to report the car stolen and claim the thieves were driving it at the time of the crash, according to the friend he called. That friend was at a restaurant when Randhawa arrived in the taxi. His friend then drove Randhawa home to Mequon, where they saw police cars waiting outside the house. As a result, they decided to return to downtown Milwaukee, the complaint says.
Randhawa was charged with 12 felonies, including three counts of second-degree reckless homicide, in the deaths of Amy C. Taylor, 32, Ashley L. Sawatzke, 30, and Lindsey B. Cohen, 35, all of Chicago.
He also faces charges for seriously injuring the 41-year-old Uber driver, Tim Snyder, who was treated for cracked ribs and vertebrae and damage to his aorta, which caused internal bleeding.
The charges did not include drunken driving, likely because he did not turn himself in to police until Monday, a day after the crash. The delay would have made it impossible to prove via a scientific test whether his blood-alcohol level was above the legal limit of 0.08. Randhawa remained jailed on $1 million bail Thursday afternoon, court and jail records show.
Randhawa has a prior conviction for drunken driving and his driver's license was still revoked from that case when the fatal crash occurred.
The women were killed about 3 a.m. Sunday when the 2015 Lexus R350 traveling westbound on W. Clybourn St. ran a red light at N. 2nd St. and struck the Uber vehicle, which was traveling southbound on N. 2nd. Investigators determined the Lexus had been traveling at 63 mph in an area with a 30 mph speed limit.
Sawatzke, Taylor and Cohen had been riding in the Uber car to the Third Ward's Kimpton Journeyman Hotel, where they planned to stay for the night, according to the Milwaukee County medical examiner's report.
The three friends worked together in Chicago at an advertising agency, Energy BBDO, for a couple of years, before Sawatzke left to work for Leo Burnett about four months ago. They were in Milwaukee on a personal trip, not business, a spokesman for Energy BBDO confirmed.