Edmonds resident Dawn Vrentas, responsible for the deaths of two friends in a 2002 drunken driving crash near Davis Lake in Eastern Washington, appeared in Seattle Wednesday morning before King County Superior Court judge Ronald Kessler to answer a charge of felony DUI.

She pleaded not guilty.

This charge stems from her arrest in the early-morning hours of July 27 when she was stopped for speeding on Interstate 5 near 145th Street while returning home from the Capital Hill Block Party. The arresting officer administered the standard field sobriety tests, and determined her blood alcohol level at 0.14 (0.08 is the legal limit in Washington State). He took her into custody and her car was towed to a Northgate-area towing yard.

Because of her past history of drunken driving, vehicular homicide and speeding convictions, the prosecutor’s office charged her with felony DUI, stating that she is a “grave danger to the community, who cannot refrain from driving while impaired or speed(ing),” and that despite the fact that two people have been killed due to her decision to drive while under the influence that “she continues to drive impaired.”

Judge Kessler set a Sept. 11 trial date. He ordered that she may continue to be free on $750,000 bond while awaiting trial, but that she may not use or possess alcohol. The defense requested that she be allowed to drive with an interlock device, but Kessler denied this request and ordered that she may not drive at all during this time.

This was not Vrentas’ first scrape with drunken driving laws. She got her first DUI in 2000 while still in her teens.

Then in 2003 things turned tragic. On the night of Aug. 2, the 22-year-old Vrentas lost control of her car on Highway 211 near Davis Lake while returning from a party in northeastern Washington’s Pend Orielle County. The car landed in the water. She escaped from the car, but her two passengers died in the crash. Vrentas’ blood alcohol level was 0.16.

She was convicted of two counts of vehicular homicide in 2002 and spent five years in the Washington State Correctional Center for Women in Gig Harbor.

After her release, she worked as a mentor to other recently released prisoners in the Post-Prison Education Program, which helps former prisoners return to society by providing access to higher education. She was very effective in this role, winning praise from students and supervisors, and earlier this year was appointed managing director of the program.

Vrentas also worked for the City of Edmonds Department of Parks and Recreation at Yost Pool. Her employment with the City of Edmonds ended in early July, concurrent with her most recent DUI arrest.

— Story and photo by Larry Vogel