By Khalida Sarwari
The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office filed a misdemeanor charge today against an 18-year-old friend of 15-year-old Sarah Botill, who suffered a possibly alcohol-related death at a friend’s sleepover in December.
Kayla Dunigan was charged with furnishing alcohol to a minor following Botill’s death on Dec. 5, 2009, according to the district attorney’s office. She will not, however, face charges related to Botill’s death because there is not enough evidence to link Dunigan’s law violation to Botill’s death, the district attorney’s office said.
The medical examiner’s office has officially ruled the cause of Botill’s death to be undetermined. Botill, the daughter of a Gilroy firefighter, drank a large amount of vodka during a sleepover at the home of Roland Velasco, a former Gilroy City Council member who now works for Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage.
Botill spent the night with Velasco’s 16-year-old stepdaughter and Dunigan, who according to police, brought out a 750-milliliter bottle of Ketel One vodka she had taken from her father without his knowledge. The girls finished about half the bottle.
Preliminary coroner’s reports found that Botill had a condition known as pulmonary vascular congestion with mild edema. According to the coroner, this condition can be caused by infection, drug or ethanol intoxication, a cardiac event or post-mortem change.
If convicted, Dunigan faces a maximum sentence of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Dunigan turned herself in Wednesday at the Gilroy Police Department but was released. She will be arraigned in court on March 16.