A Spring man has been charged with providing drinks for a 22-year-old woman on the evening she drove the wrong direction on I-45, killing two teenagers and permanently injuring a third.
Hours before a jury sentenced Nicole Baukus to 34 years in prison on Friday, authorities issued an arrest warrant for Kambiz Michael Duran, who was caught on surveillance camera that tragic night in 2012 as he was giving drinks to the defendant during her four-hour bender at a Woodlands bar.
According to public records, Duran currently is serving a 180-day stint in a Harris County jail for possession of marijuana and criminal forgery. Officials with Montgomery County are permitted to detain the accused upon his release in December.
Duran has been no stranger to the court system in the last decade.
Witnesses identified 29-year-old Duran as attorneys played a video of Baukus consuming a total of 21 drinks at the then-named On the Rox sports bar, which agreed to a $1-million settlement in April.
Prosecutors tell the Houston Chronicle that laws blocking bartenders from selling drinks to intoxicated patrons also applies to customers who give alcohol to someone who has had too much.
The incriminating sports bar footage led the defendant to change her plea to guilty at Friday's trial, during which KHOU Channel 11 reports that she took the stand to reveal her own thoughts of suicide.
“I don't deserve to be here. I should have died in that crash also,” she told jurors. “They did not deserve to die. I did. They were innocent."
A busy criminal past
Duran has been no stranger to the court system in the last decade. In 2002, he was arrested and later convicted for producing LSD as well as for transporting a sizable amount of marijuana and possessing an illegal firearm.
County records show that he also pled guilty to another drug and weapons possession incident in 2010.
The charges behind Duran's current jail time date to December, when he set his Spring home ablaze while making "earwax" — a liquid pot derivative known for its dangerous Breaking Bad-style manufacturing process.
Watch the KHOU Channel 11 report:
Kambiz Michael Duran is accused of providing drinks to a woman who drove the wrong direction on a Houston freeway.
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Photo by Leonid Furmansky
