Drunk mom wrecked BMW with baby on lap

A 44-year-old San Francisco mother was found guilty Friday of crashing her BMW into a power pole in Redwood City in 2014 while driving drunk and carrying her 3-week-old baby on her lap, prosecutors said Monday.

A jury in the courtroom of Judge Richard Livermore found Nicole Christine Karvelis guilty of felony drunk driving with three or more prior convictions, misdemeanor hit-and-run and misdemeanor child endangerment, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors said Karvelis was driving east on Cordilleras Road on July 1, 2014, when she hit a power pole and sheared it in half at the intersection with Canyon Road, prosecutors said.

A witness saw the crash and watched Karvelis jump from the BMW with her baby still in her lap. The baby fell to the ground and rolled toward the witness’s car, prosecutors said.

Karvelis then tried to leave by getting into another person’s truck, but the driver and passenger in the truck told her she had to stay at the crash scene, prosecutors said.

She then ran to a house nearby. The homeowner flagged down responding San Mateo County sheriff’s deputies, who found the homeowner holding Karvelis’ baby. They took the baby and found Karvelis, who was saying, “I probably shouldn’t have been driving,” and “I drank too much,” prosecutors said.

Karvelis refused to submit to a blood test so exactly how much she’d had to drink wasn’t determined.

After a 10-day trial a jury returned guilty verdicts on three counts. Karvelis is set to return to court on April 1 for sentencing, prosecutors said.

Bay City News

Bay City News is a 24/7 news service covering the greater Bay Area. © 2022 Bay City News, Inc. All rights reserved. Republication, rebroadcast or redistribution without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.