Greenbelt, Maryland - A federal jury convicted Charles Jerome Wiggins, age 25, of Cottage City, Maryland, late yesterday of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and reckless driving.
The conviction was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein and Chief of Police Robert D. MacLean of the U.S. Park Police.
According to evidence presented at the three day trial, on Dec. 12, 2013 at 2 a.m., Wiggins was driving a car on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. His wife, Kiana Wiggins, who had turned 34 that day, was in the front passenger seat, and his sister-in-law, Angel Barbour, age 21, was sitting in the back behind her. His sister-in-law’s boyfriend was also sitting in the back seat. Wiggins rear-ended a pickup truck that was driving in the same direction. The truck went into the woods, and Wiggins’s car flipped over and skidded on its roof more than 200 feet. The two women were killed. Wiggins was found to have a blood alcohol level of.19%.
Wiggins faces a maximum sentence of sixteen years in prison for the two involuntary manslaughter counts, and six months in prison for reckless driving. U.S. District Judge George J. Hazel has scheduled sentencing for June 21, 2016 at 9:30 a.m.
United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein commended the U.S. Park Police for its work in the investigation and thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Hollis Raphael Weisman and Special Assistant United States Attorney Conor Mulroe, of the U.S. Department of Justice, who prosecuted the case.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
