Driver, 23, pleads guilty in deadly high-speed St. Paul crash

A Tesla driver who authorities said was speeding when he caused a fatal crash in St. Paul pleaded guilty earlier this week. 

A jury trial was set to begin Monday for Musab Kosar, a 23-year-old man from Fridley, Minnesota, but he instead pleaded guilty to third-degree murder. Last November, he was initially charged with criminal vehicular homicide.

A state trooper first saw the speeding Tesla on the ramp from Pascal Street to eastbound Interstate 94 around 2 a.m. Wednesday, a criminal complaint states. Authorities allege the driver was going nearly 30 mph over the speed limit at the time, and subsequently reached speeds in excess of 100 mph.

The trooper followed the Tesla without lights or sirens and saw the driver turn the vehicle's lights off while exiting at Dale Street. At the top of the ramp, the trooper found a crash between the Tesla and a Toyota RAV4.

The RAV4's driver, 31-year-old Benjamin Villano, was killed in the crash. When the trooper checked on the Tesla, he found Kosar and a passenger "covered in blood and in significant pain, and both claimed no memory of the crash," the complaint states. Both were taken to a hospital, where again Kosar said he did not recall the collision.

The passenger, identified by police as a 19-year-old woman, said she had previously asked Kosar to stop speeding, "but she didn't believe he was speeding that evening," the complaint states.

"When people are driving fast, it's just so ridiculous and then so dangerous, because of instances like this," Minnesota State Patrol Lieutenant Mike Lee said in an interview with WCCO on Friday. "Speed limits are to be followed. It's a limit to be at, not to exceed."

According to his guilty plea petition, Kosar's sentencing is now set for Jan. 22.