From JournalStar.com:
Prosecutors have charged a 16-year-old boy with motor vehicle homicide for an August crash in south Lincoln that took the life of a 16-year-old girl.
Taylor Mortensen, a junior at Lincoln Southeast High School, went to court last week for the first time on the misdemeanor. He is set to return in February.
Police say Mortensen's Monte Carlo T-boned Emily Johnson's Honda Accord on Aug. 22 as she drove across Pine Lake Road after stopping for a stop sign on 34th Street.
Rescue workers whisked both of the young drivers to the hospital, where Johnson, a junior at Southwest High School, died.
In the days that followed, police went to Mortensen's home Aug. 27 with a search warrant, snapped pictures of his Samsung cell phone and left with it. Police haven't said publicly what, if anything, they found on it.
Months passed with no court action until the Lancaster County Attorney's office quietly filed the charge in adult court on Dec. 16.
Mortensen can ask that the case be transferred to juvenile court because of his age, but he is not eligible for diversion because the charge is not among those that can be diverted.
By state law, motor vehicle homicide occurs when a person "causes the death of another unintentionally while engaged in the operation of a motor vehicle in violation of the law of the State of Nebraska or in violation of any city or village ordinance..."
In the complaint, Deputy County Attorney Eric Miller alleged Mortensen was driving over the speed limit or driving "carelessly or without due caution."
Neither Miller nor others in the office returned messages seeking comment.
Chief Deputy County Attorney Joe Kelly said last month that when he heard of the crash he wondered, as others did, if Mortensen had been speeding or on a cell phone.
At that time he said police were still working to determine what had happened.
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