D.A. mulls criminal charges in fatal Ferrari crash
1:36 PM | March 12, 2009
Prosecutors and police are meeting today to discuss the case of a Costa Mesa man arrested on suspicion of drunk driving and vehicular manslaughter after his Porsche collided with a Ferrari, killing mixed-martial-arts fighter and clothing-company founder Charles Mask Lewis.
Jeffrey David Kirby, 51, remains behind bars on $2-million bail while authorities decide how to proceed.
Kirby was taken into custody Wednesday by Newport Beach police after he left the scene of the accident on Jamboree Road, where the Ferrari crashed into a light pole and split in two, leaving Lewis dead and hurling his female passenger into the street.
The woman is still hospitalized. Her name has not been released.
Police say the two cars appeared to have been traveling side by side in the southbound lanes at a high rate of speed when they collided near Upper Newport Bay about 1 a.m. Wednesday. Officers found Kirbys Porsche on a side street a short distance away, as he and a female passenger were walking away from the vehicle.
Kirby has been cited in Orange County for at least eight traffic violations since 2001, including a conviction for driving under the influence in which he was sentenced to three years probation, according to court records.
In the 2001 drunk-driving arrest, Kirby allegedly told the arresting officer that his father was a retired California Highway Patrol officer who always advised him never to submit to a sobriety test. He also told the officer that "he shouldnt be picking on people with money," according to the police report.
Lewis founded TapouT clothing with Dan Punkass Caldwell in 1997, selling T-shirts out of the trunks of their cars at mixed-martial-arts shows. As the mixed-martial-arts scene exploded in recent years, TapouT became the apparel of choice for many fighters and was the exclusive apparel used in the Ultimate Fighting Championships popular reality series on Spike TV, "The Ultimate Fighter."
Before breaking into the martial-arts arena, Lewis was a San Bernardino County sheriffs deputy who worked at the Central Detention Center in downtown San Bernardino from December 1996 to May 1998.
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