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Deadly 99-mph Mission Viejo crash gets driver 15 years to life in prison

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A 28-year-old Mission Viejo man who crashed his souped-up Camaro into another vehicle at nearly 100 miles per hour, killing the other driver, was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years to life in prison.

An Orange County Superior Court jury last month found Afiff Kevin Doaifi guilty of second-degree murder for the March 2017 crash on Alicia Parkway at Althea Avenue that took the life of 33-year-old Judith Noval.

According to testimony during his trial, Doaifi’s Camaro — which he had outfitted with a supercharged V-8 engine while removing the catalytic converter and installing racing tires — was going 99 mph two-and-a-half seconds before colliding with Noval’s Hyundai. Noval died about a month later from injuries sustained in the crash.

While Doaifi was not accused of driving under the influence at the time of the crash, the then-23-year-old had already amassed a collection of five speeding tickets. As a result, prosecutors charged him with second-degree murder — rather than a lesser charge of vehicular manslaughter — under the theory that he knew speeding was dangerous to human life but chose to do it anyway.

At least one of the previous speeding tickets — for going 109 mph on the I-5 Freeway in Mission Viejo — had landed Doaifi in front of a judge, where he claimed the arrest was a “pretty big wakeup call.”

Deputy District Attorney Dan Feldman told jurors during Doaifi’s trial that Noval was more than 250 feet away from Doaifi when she began to make a left turn into a residential neighborhood. She would have had plenty of time to safely complete the turn if Doaifi hadn’t been speeding, the prosecutor added.

The prosecutor also played for jurors a recorded 911 call made by Doaifi in the minutes after the crash, in which he seemingly blamed the other driver and spoke about the damage to his car.

Doaifi’s attorney, Ed Welbourn, argued during his trial that the crash was a tragedy, but not a murder. The defense attorney acknowledged that Doaifi had been driving too fast, but Welbourn denied his client knew that speeding can kill.

Hours earlier, Doaifi’s then-girlfriend had confessed to him that she had an eating disorder and hadn’t eaten in three days, Welbourn told jurors. At the time of the crash, Doaifi was trying to get his girlfriend home as quickly as possible, the defense attorney said, since she had finally agreed to have a sandwich at his home after refusing to eat at nearby restaurants.

Welbourn argued that Noval was not in a left turn lane and did not have her turn indicators on when she began to turn, giving Doaifi no warning. According to testimony, Doaifi slammed on his brakes but was unable to avoid the collision.

Prosecutors noted that witnesses never heard Doaifi ask about the well-being of the driver of the car he hit.

“The fact that this individual cared more about the damage to his car than the woman he just slammed into at nearly 100 miles per hour clearly shows his priorities,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement after the sentencing. “He didn’t care how many speeding tickets he racked up, he kept speeding and kept putting innocent people in danger until he finally killed someone. This is a tragedy that could have been avoided, but Mr. Doaifi simply didn’t care about anyone or anything besides himself and his car.”

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