Plenty of evidence at the trial of Amy Senser supports her two criminal vehicular homicide convictions -- including testimony that she deleted text messages after a deadly crash, gave away clothes she had been wearing and dyed her hair, according to the state's brief filed in response to Senser's appeal.

"Not only did (Senser) flee the scene of this collision, she took pains to cover up her involvement," said the brief by Lee Barry of the Hennepin County attorney's office, which prosecuted Senser.

The state also argued that Hennepin County District Judge Daniel Mobley ruled correctly when he refused to move the trial out of the county, allow expert testimony on the Edina woman's history of headaches or admit evidence that there was cocaine in the victim's system.

Senser, the wife of former Minnesota Viking and now restaurateur Joe Senser, was convicted in May 2012 in the hit-and-run death of Thai chef Anousone Phanthavong, 38, of Roseville. She is serving a three-year, five-month sentence.

Phanthavong was standing beside his stalled car on the Riverside Avenue exit from westbound Interstate 94 in Minneapolis when Senser struck and killed him Aug. 23, 2011.

She has said she didn't know she had struck a person. Her attorneys appealed the convictions Dec. 26.

The 53-page prosecution brief, filed with the state Court of Appeals on Monday, Feb. 11, comes in response to the defense appeal of the case. Attorneys for Senser, 46, contended the trial judge made errors that justified a dismissal of the charges or a new trial.

Senser's lawyers have 15 days to reply to the prosecution brief, and the appeals court will then schedule its oral arguments.

Phanthavong had gained acclaim as head chef of True Thai in Minneapolis. He was driving to the restaurant when his car ran out of gas.

When Senser hit him, she was driving perhaps 55 mph. The impact knocked Phanthavong nearly 50 feet; he died at the scene.

Senser neither slowed nor stopped. She testified that she felt a "clunk" but thought she'd hit a construction barricade or a pothole. The next morning, after she and her husband had surveyed the damage to the vehicle, they called a lawyer.

"At this point, it was evident that she had been involved in a collision that was much more than striking a construction cone," the prosecution brief said. "In fact, her husband had no difficulty in concluding that she had been involved in the fatal collision" that he had just read about online, the brief said.

The lawyer turned the vehicle over to the Minnesota State Patrol the night after the crash while the Sensers were out of town. Amy Senser didn't acknowledge driving the vehicle until 10 days after the crash.

At trial, a prosecutor argued that Senser might not have stopped because she had been drinking. Senser said she had consumed part of a glass of wine two hours before the crash. She told jurors she was not drunk or under the influence of any other substance.

But the prosecution cited in its brief the trial testimony of Molly Kelley, who said she saw Senser's car on westbound I-94 driving erratically. It was about 40 minutes after the crash. By this time, emergency vehicles had converged on the exit ramp.

Aside from Senser, the jury heard from 28 witnesses. But jurors didn't believe Senser's version of events and convicted her on two counts of criminal vehicular homicide. One count accused her of leaving the scene of the crash; the other accused her of failing to notify police as quickly as possible.

At her sentencing in July, Senser tearfully expressed remorse and defense attorney Eric Nelson asked for leniency. Mabley said a stiff sentence was justified because she had yet to accept responsibility for her actions.

Senser's attorneys argued in December that the pretrial publicity was so negative she shouldn't have been tried in Minneapolis.

Nelson and co-counsel Christina Zauhar also argued that there wasn't enough evidence to support the two guilty verdicts of criminal vehicular homicide. Specifically, they said there was no evidence that Senser had "actual knowledge" that she had struck a person or vehicle.

The prosecutors also argued that a note, which was sent by the jury to Mabley, should have been disclosed to them immediately. 

After the jury reached its verdicts, the forewoman wrote to Mabley that they wanted Senser to know that they believed she thought she had struck a vehicle and not a person. They wanted the note read in open court. Mabley refused.

The judge didn't tell the lawyers about the note until a few days later.

He said he considered the communication a "housekeeping" matter unrelated to the verdicts.
