A 25-year-old Diamond Bar man pleaded guilty to causing a 2022 wrong-way crash that killed an L.A. County Sheriff’s Department recruit and injured dozens of others as they headed for early-morning training in South Whittier, authorities said.
Nicholas Joseph Gutierrez will receive an eight-year suspended sentence and five years of probation after pleading guilty Monday to one count of vehicular homicide and nine counts of reckless driving, according to a statement released by the L.A. County District Attorney’s office.
The plea bans Gutierrez from driving for five years. Prosecutors said that if he violates the terms of his probation, he will have to serve his entire prison sentence.
“Today’s plea and sentence cannot undo the devastation of that day, nor can it bring back the lives that were lost,” Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said. “But it is a step toward justice and a measure of closure for the victims and their families whose lives have been forever changed.”
Gutierrez fell asleep while driving to work near the department’s STARS Center training academy in the early morning hours of Nov. 16, 2022, his attorney, Alexandra Kazarian, previously told The Times. As a group of about 80 recruits were running along Mills Avenue their car went into the wrong lane of traffic.
Prosecutors said more than two dozen recruits were hit and bruised, while 10 suffered serious injuries. Alejandro Martínez, 27, died of his injuries months later.
Former Sheriff Alex Villanueva initially claimed that his investigators found probable cause that the crash was an intentional attack on law enforcement and described the case as attempted murder. Kazarian said there was no evidence of this. Villanueva did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
Gutierrez’s father is a retired corrections officer and his relatives work for the Los Angeles Police Department, the California Highway Patrol and the Sheriff’s Department, according to Kazarian, who said his client “has no animosity at all toward law enforcement.”
In An interview with KNBC-TV Channel 4 In 2022, Gutierrez said that the accident was an accident and that he wished “it never happened.”
