Woman gets year for DUI death that killed Sutter deputy

Erin Marie Jasper was sentenced Monday to a year in county jail and placed on five years probation for vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated in the Nov. 7 crash that killed her passenger, Sutter County sheriff's deputy Rory Roguski.

About a dozen people spoke during the two-hour sentencing hearing in Yuba County Superior Court.

District Attorney Pat McGrath said after the sentencing that a year is the maximum Oregon House resident Jasper, 27, who had no previous criminal record, could have received for the manslaughter charge. The Yuba County Probation Department had recommended 180 days.

"We had sought the 12-month sentence," McGrath said. "We felt it was appropriate."

Jasper was taken into custody after the sentencing before Yuba County Superior Court Judge Julia Scrogin.

A member of the Roguski family wrote to the court that the deputy "was a wonderful person who always looked for the good in people."

The biggest dream that came true for Roguski, 25, a Sutter High School and Yuba College graduate, was becoming a Sutter County's sheriff's deputy, a friend of his wrote.

Jasper wrote a letter to the court about the accident that killed Roguski when he was thrown from her 1999 Ford Mustang after the vehicle slammed into a rock wall on Highway 20 in the Sierra foothills near Smartsville.

"I made the worst mistake of life," Jasper wrote.

She had a .12 blood-alcohol level in a sample taken about two hours after the accident. She said later in the letter that, "I deserve the worst sentence possible for my actions."

"I am my own worst enemy here and I will never forgive myself for what happened," Jasper stated.

She and Roguski had gone out on their first date the Friday before the fatal accident and met at Carl's Jr. in Marysville where he gave her flowers with a little fake pumpkin, Jasper recounted.

Before the Nov. 7 fatal crash, she and Roguski went to the Lake House Inn in Smartsville, to the Chevys restaurant in Auburn and returned to the Lake House before Jasper drove with Roguski to go to her home in Oregon House.

"I honestly did not feel that I was too intoxicated to drive," Jasper wrote.

She is a Yuba College graduate who was nine units short of completing an online degree in homeland security and emergency management, according to the probation report. Jasper worked at Beale Air Force Base as a security information manager.

The probation department report said Jasper doesn't describe herself as an alcoholic but stopped drinking after the fatal accident and began attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

She wrote that "I have two lives to live: My own and Rory's. He is forever with me."

CONTACT Ryan McCarthy at rmccarthy@appealdemocrat.com or 749-4780. Find him on Facebook at /ADrmccarthy or on Twitter at @ADrmccarthy.