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Jury Seated In Leyritz DUI Manslaughter Trial

FORT LAUDERDALE (CBS4) - The D.U.I manslaughter trial against former baseball star Jim Leyritz now has a seated jury.

The six person panel, along with two alternates, was seated this afternoon in a Broward Courtroom.

They were drawn from a pool of 75 prospective jurors.

Jury selection began Monday, but attorneys quickly realized that finding an unbiased jury would prove to be difficult due to immense media coverage of the December 2007 crash that killed 30-year-old Fredia Ann Veitch.

Prosecutors allege Leyritz was legally drunk when he got behind the wheel of his car and drove home from a Fort Lauderdale bar.

Leyritz's allegedly ran a red light and slammed into a car driven by Veitch, killing her.

In pretrial hearings, the Circuit Judge Marc Gold threw out evidence that Veitch was also driving drunk that night, and may have been texting just before the crash.

The former New York Yankees great settled a wrongful death lawsuit with the Veitch family earlier this year. The settlement states his insurance company will pay a lump sum of $250,000, and Leyritz will pay $1,000 a month for the next 100 months, beginning in April of 2011.

46 year-old Leyritz faces 15 years in prison if convicted of the charge.

Leyritz catapulted to stardom after hitting a home run and defeating the Atlanta Braves in Game 4 of the 1996 World Series.

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