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Vehicular homicide ends in plea deal

Ismail could face up to 10 years in prison

The Fort Dodge woman charged with vehicular homicide has agreed to a plea deal in which she could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay $150,000 in restitution for her role in a fatal 2018 crash.

Aisha Ismail, 26, entered a guilty plea after fighting homicide by vehicle, a class B charge, for about 18 months. She pleaded guilty to homicide by vehicle — reckless driving, a class C charge, in documents filed Tuesday.

Her prison term for the vehicular homicide will start after she has completed another sentence of up to 10 years for second-degree arson, stemming from a June 2017 incident in which she started a fire at The Islamic Center, a Des Moines mosque. Two people were sleeping inside the building when she entered and set fire to a carpet.

Ismail was previously on a two-year probation for the class B arson conviction, but pleaded guilty to violation of it in May.

In the plea agreement filed this week, Ismail admitted to unintentionally killing Humboldt resident David Fliehe, 20, in a head-on July 2018 crash on Webster County Road C56 through reckless driving.

As she sped above the speed limit westbound on the road in her Land Rover SUV, Ismail admitted to passing a truck pulling a trailer in a no-passing zone. The zone was at a crest in the road that made it unsafe to see oncoming traffic in the eastbound lane. Fliehe was driving a Plymouth Neon.

Iowa State Patrol reports estimated she was going 70 mph in a 55 mph zone.

“While driving, I was in a highly emotional state after arguing with a person previously, and was using my cell phone during that time,” Ismail said in her plea agreement. “I did not see any oncoming traffic, (and) had no intention of causing a collision, but believe that I was driving in an unsafe manner and willfully disregarded the safety of others and the likely consequences.”

Her plea agreement continues to dispute previous reports that allege she was intoxicated while she drove that night. A urine sample taken from Ismail after she was transported to a Des Moines hospital showed a .101 blood alcohol concentration, above the .08 limit.

Ismail’s attorney, Judd Parker, cited several discrepancies between purported facts of the case and the facts presented to a judge to obtain a search warrant for Ismail’s bodily fluids as he argued to suppress the evidence in court, prior to the plea.

He argued the warrant authorized by a judge permitted a body specimen in the form of blood, different than both the requested urine sample in the application for the warrant and what was actually retrieved from Ismail. Parker argued that, per Iowa code, urine specimens are typically authorized after blood withdrawal is refused, which he said Ismail had no opportunity to do.

In addition to alleging that the Iowa State Patrol officer applying for the warrant made false statements in his application, Parker argued that the application wasn’t specific enough to meet probable cause standards necessary to obtain it. For example, there was no language demonstrating the officer’s observations of intoxication with Ismail at the scene of the accident, such as slurred speech or failed field sobriety tests.

First Assistant Webster County Attorney Ryan Baldridge declined to comment on the case until after sentencing.

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