The fact that Mario Iorgulescu drove at 143 km/h in the town, under the influence of alcohol and cocaine, causing a fatal accident is not murder, the High Court of Justice decided. Murder involves an action directed against the victim, and the driver acted on the car, say the judges.
Mario Iorgulescu will be tried for manslaughter. PHOTO: Personal archive
Mario Iorgulescu, the son of the President of the Professional Football League, escaped the sentence of 13 years and 8 months in prison for the fatal road accident he caused in 2019.
The High Court of Cassation and Justice published, the other day, the reasons for admitting the annulment appeal submitted by Mario Iorgulescu. Through this decision taken in June, the file was sent for retrial, and the son of the President of the Professional Football League was freed from the charges of murder, to be tried for manslaughter.
Mario Iorgulescu is currently in Italy, where he was transferred immediately after the accident, avoiding the hearings and trial in Romania.
Defense lawyers: ‘a car accident is not murder’
Mario Iorgulescu’s lawyers argued, in essence, that “a car accident does not constitute the crime of murder”.
The act of the young man who drove under the influence of alcohol and cocaine, causing a fatal car accident, is instead manslaughter, his lawyers have shown.
The most important difference between “murder” and “manslaughter” lies in the punishment applied: imprisonment from 10 to 20 years, and in the case of manslaughter the punishment is from 2 to 7 years, considering that the driver was under the influence of alcohol and cocaine.
Defense Explanation: “a driver who presses the accelerator on a public road, even accepting the forecast variant of a socially dangerous result and who is based on a minimum of elements to avoid a potential danger, does not act accepting the potential socially dangerous result, but baselessly considers that this will not happen.”
Simply put, the difference between manslaughter and manslaughter lies in the driver’s attitude toward the possibility of a fatal accident.
If he foresaw the fact that the way he drives could cause a fatal accident and left his fate and that of other road users in the hands of chance, in other words he accepted that it is possible to kill someone, we are talking about murder, more precisely manslaughter with indirect intent.
On the other hand, if he foresaw that the way he was driving could cause a fatal accident, but thought without reason that it would not occur, we are talking about manslaughter.
The fundamental difference is that in manslaughter the driver had arguments that he would not cause a fatal accident. In murder, he had no such arguments and accepted the fact that he would be able to kill someone, even though he did not want to.
Thus, Iorgulescu’s lawyers argued that he did not accept that he could cause a moral accident, relying on objective elements through which an eventual accident could be avoided, such as: “the previous experience of the defendant in driving similar vehicles, the faultless technical condition of the Aston Martin model DBS car and the elements related to the traffic in the respective area, taking into account the time interval, constitute genuine grounds taken into account at the time he decided to drive the car.“
Therefore, the defense concluded, the accident occurred because the driver mistakenly assessed the fact that he could avoid the collision with the car traveling in the opposite direction.
The lawyers also argued that, in similar situations, the courts retained the crime of manslaughter.
The reasoning of the High Court: “murder is an action, accident an event”
Two of the three judges of the High Court panel accepted Iorgulescu’s appeal, basically showing that the act of which he is guilty is not murder. Why?
“The material element of the objective side of the crime of “murder” consisting of “killing a person” can be retained only in the conditions where the act itself reveals without any doubt an action that results in the suppression of a person’s life”it is stated in the reasoning of the decision.
Murder, say judges Lia Savonea and Adriana Ispas, presupposes “an action (or even inaction), which must be directed at the victim.”
Instead, a road accident is defined as an event. “An event is, in itself, fortuitous and not intentional, it has an unpredictable character”, it is also shown in the motivation.
Thus, the “action” of the author (the driver) is on the vehicle and not on the victim, say the magistrates.
The fact that the speed acceleration system operated above the legal limit, with the consequence of entering into a head-on collision with the car driven by the victim, which caused his death, “from an objective and subjective point of view, it falls within the crime of manslaughter” – the court says.
“The crime of murder would be possible only in the situation where the vehicle was used or accepted to have been used as a means for the purpose of suppressing the life of the victim. However, neither the trial court nor the appeal court revealed such a circumstance” – concluded the two judges.
Iorgulescu will be tried for manslaughter
The fact that Iorgulescu disregarded the legal provisions regarding traffic on public roads (he drove at excessive speed, under the influence of alcoholic beverages and prohibited substances) are circumstances that reveal a high degree of danger of the act and a high danger of the offender, placing the crime in the aggravated form, the court also shows.
Thus, Mario Iorgulescu will be tried for manslaughter, in an aggravated form. This means that the punishment limit will be between 2 and 7 years, taking into account the listed aggravating circumstances.
The decision was signed by judges Adriana Ispas and Lia Savonea. Judge Dan Andrei Enescu issued a separate opinion, in which he shows that the High Court cannot, in the case of an appeal for annulment, modify the legal classification of the fact.
The case will be retried at the Court of Appeal for the crime of manslaughter.
2023 sentence
We remind you that in October 2023, Mario Iorgulescu was definitively sentenced by the Bucharest Court of Appeal to 13 years and 8 months in prison for murder and driving a vehicle under the influence of alcohol and drugs (cocaine), in connection with the car accident caused by him in year 2019, resulting in the death of a man.
Mario Iorgulescu claims that he is hospitalized in a private clinic in Italy. This after his parents organized his transfer by private plane immediately after the accident. During the investigation and trial, he was not heard by prosecutors or magistrates.
The accident
4 years ago, Gino Iorgulescu’s son caused a serious car accident, driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol. The toxicological analysis report shows that he had “a concentration of 1.96 g/l of pure blood alcohol at 5:06 a.m. and a concentration of 1.76 g/l of pure blood alcohol at 6:06 a.m.” and that he was found “positive for cocaine”.
Mario Iorgulescu was coming from a party in Tărtășești, where he consumed alcohol. After an argument on the phone with his ex-girlfriend, in a state of anger and under the influence of alcohol and cocaine, he decided to drive to Bucharest in his Aston Martin DBS car. He entered the Capital through Chitila, traveling at speeds between 140 km/h and 164 km/h. At an intersection, he ran a red light at 145 km/h and accelerated to 162 km/h while overtaking another vehicle. He then entered the opposite direction and caused a head-on collision at a speed of 143 km/h, in which the driver of the other car died on the spot.
Mario Iorgulescu left the country after the accident and is in Italy, where, according to his lawyers, he is receiving treatment because he suffers from serious mental illnesses.
