Woman acquitted of serious charges in ’08 crash

HASTINGS, Minn. (AP) — A judge has acquitted a 22-year-old woman of the most serious charges in a 2008 crash that killed a woman and two children in Dakota County.

Judge Jerome Abrams acquitted Brittany Rose Mertz of St. Paul on three felony counts of criminal vehicular homicide.

Mertz also was acquitted on charges of criminal vehicular operation and reckless driving. The only charge she was convicted of was careless driving, a misdemeanor.

The charges stemmed from a collision in Inver Grove Heights that killed 30-year-old Brittany Beth Carlson of Zumbrota, her 2-year-old son, Brandon, and 4-year-old Tamaya Phillips of Minneapolis. Two other children in Carlson’s vehicle were seriously injured.

Mertz waived a jury trial and had her case decided by the judge.