A jury acquitted a woman, whose son went on a fatal shooting spree before committing suicide, of hit-and-run charges in her own criminal case that seriously injured three people, including a 4-year-old girl.
Sarwat Syed was acquitted on Friday in an Orange County courtroom of the felony charges connected to a 2011 crash on the San Diego Freeway in Irvine.
The crash injured three people when their car slid off the freeway and into a concrete culvert. Prosecutors say Syed failed to stop.
The 4-year-old girl, who's now 6, suffered a broken nose and jaw in the crash and spent 27 days in the hospital.
The girl's family called the acquittal a "travesty."
“Disappointed is a huge understatement,” the girl's father, Robert O'Connor, said on Saturday. "We did our best. We got our day in court."
Syed garnered headlines when her son, Ali, went on a shooting rampage that killed three people in February before he committed suicide.
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Syed's attorney, Vincent LaBarbera Jr., said the acquittal is a mixed blessing.
"(Syed's) heart goes out to the victims," he said. "We worked for over two years for a jury to hear her side of the story."
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