Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, October 4, 1994                   TAG: 9410050047
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SUIT SEEKS $200,000 OVER DEADLY CAR CRASH

Brooks, who was killed along with two others in the May 1993 head-on collision on the Roy Webber Highway, was named in a lawsuit filed in Roanoke Circuit Court.

Eleni Asimakopoulos, who was injured, is seeking $200,000 from Brooks' estate.

Brooks, 22, whose driver's license had been suspended at least six times, had recently been declared a habitual offender - meaning he was barred from the road for 10 years - at the time of the accident.

Police have said Brooks was going nearly 100 mph southbound near the Elm Avenue exit when his Mustang veered across the median strip, went airborne and crashed head-on into another car traveling in the opposite direction.

The collision killed Geoffrey Pelton, the driver of the second car; Brooks; and Gregory Kinzie, Brooks' passenger and the owner of the Mustang.

The impact smashed Pelton's car into the front of a car driven by Asimakopoulos, who the lawsuit says suffered "serious and permanent injuries."

Brooks, who allegedly was driving while intoxicated at the time of the early-morning crash, acted "carelessly, recklessly, negligently, maliciously, willfully and wantonly," the suit alleges.

Several weeks later, another motorist with a restricted license caused an accident that killed a 9-year-old Roanoke County boy.

Community outrage over the two accidents prompted the Courts of Justice Committee of the House of Delegates to hold a public hearing in Roanoke, and a panel of legislators created at the hearing later drafted a package of anti-drunken driving laws that were passed this year by the General Assembly.

Keywords:
FATALITY