A Milwaukee woman has been charged with reckless driving in a fatal crash

MILWAUKEE – A woman from Milwaukee was sentenced to 15 years in prison for Accident due to carelessness that happened in May.

Prosecutors accused 25-year-old Ellastisha Harris with four felonies in the case. Court records show she took a plea deal Thursday and was convicted of three counts before being sentenced; the fourth point was rejected. In addition to the term of imprisonment, she was sentenced to 10 years of extended supervision.

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Case details

According to the criminal complaint, officers were stopped at a red light when they spotted a black Ford around 11:50 p.m. on May 11. Police said the Ford sped down Appleton Avenue and “dangerously” passed several vehicles before running a red light at Nash Street.

The police turned around to follow the Ford, and at that point the Ford was several blocks ahead because of how fast he was going, the complaint says. When officers arrived at the intersection of Appleton and Burleigh, they encountered a Ford involved in an accident with two other vehicles: a Mitsubishi and a Nissan.

The officer approached the Ford and found the driver and sole passenger, identified as Harris, the complaint said. She said she was on her way to see a family member who had an “emergency” and apologized for speeding.

According to the complaint, the driver was in the back seat of the Nissan when the officer approached him; the driver’s seat was unoccupied, and there was a passenger in the front seat. Both were taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Prosecutors said 50-year-old Jason Stark, the driver and sole occupant of the Mitsubishi, was unresponsive and “carried” into the back seat in the crash. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Surveillance video from a business near Appleton and Burleigh showed the Ford appear in the frame “at an extremely high rate of speed” before crashing into Stark’s Mitsubishi, the complaint said. Both the Ford and Mitsubishi were traveling southeast on Appleton Avenue, and the collision sent the Mitsubishi into the northwest lane, where it struck the Nissan.

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After her arrest, Harris admitted her driver’s license was suspended. She told investigators she thought she was going 35 to 40 mph and may have run a red light, but all she remembered was hitting a utility pole. According to police, she did not mention the family member in “emergency condition” who was mentioned at the scene of the accident.

According to the complaint, data from the Ford’s airbag control module showed that Harris was traveling at 92 mph in the seconds before the crash and had slowed to 64 mph at the time of the collision. The speed limit on Appleton Avenue, where the crash occurred, is 35 mph.

Prosecutors said Harris’ driving records showed she was convicted of operating while suspended in Waukesha County in August 2019 and has since been convicted of the same offense five more times in multiple jurisdictions, most recently in August 2021 .