UCSC student faces 6 years in prison for crash that killed two

UPDATE: 1/17/2018 2:47 p.m. A University of California Santa Cruz student faces six years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence for the death of two people.

The crash occurred on March 21 of 2016, when 21-year-old Lynnea Leticia Hernandez was driving her friends from Santa Cruz to Big Sur in her Lexus SUV.

“They had all piled into her vehicle and they were snapchatting and passing around a marijuana pipe, dancing in a vehicle, singing being distracted,” said prosecutor Meredith Sillman. “And so about ten minutes before the actual collision we have this snapchat video of her looking into the phone, her eyes are not on the roadway, she’s singing and dancing and pretty much acting out for this snapchat video instead of paying attention to the roadway. And though there was marijuana in her system, it did not come up to the level of impairment after the testing that we had done with the blood results.”

Around 12:12 p.m. Hernandez crossed into oncoming traffic and hit the car driven by 24-year-old victim Nikolas Malliarodakis, killing him instantly. Lillian Scott was seated in the middle backseat and also died on impact. The other passengers in Hernandez’s car sustained major injuries from the crash.

Malliarodakis was a resident of Monterey. His family was in court when Hernandez entered a guilty plea. His mother, Veronica Ramirez, said she had mixed feelings about the deal. While she says she can finally move on, she felt that six years was not enough time. A plea deal helps the family seek closure, lawyers say.

“She’s (Hernandez) emotionally devastated, feels very bad for what happened and to her credit her primary motivating factor to settle the case instead of a trial was to spare the victims the pain of reliving the events of what happened,” said defense attorney John Coniglio.

Hernandez also pleaded guilty to two counts of reckless driving causing injury to her passengers Sydney Beyer, Guadalupe Valdez, and Morgan Benninger.

Hernandez will be sentenced on March 23, 2017 to the upper term of 6 years in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

PREVIOUS STORY: 11/17/16 9:50 AM: A U.C. Santa Cruz student on trial for killing two in a head on collision last March will not face D.U.I. related charges.

In a Salinas courtroom Wednesday, prosecutors said blood tests on Lynnea Hernandez do not show she was legally impaired when she crashed into an oncoming car in Moss Landing.

“Until we actually did all the bloodwork, we found out that Ms. Hernandez was not potentially under the influence of alcohol, err drugs at the time of the accident,” said John Coniglio, defense attorney.

Conigilio said Hernandez tested negative for Vicodin, and marijuana levels in her system did not indicate she was impaired at the time of the accident.

Investigators say Herndandez was driving a carload of passengers from Santa Cruz to Big Sur when she crashed into an oncoming car in Moss Landing, killing passenger Lilian Scott, 20, and Nikolas Malliarodakis, 24, driver of the other car.

Hernandez is now charged with two counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and five counts of reckless driving causing injury. All are felonies.

Malliarodakis’ family attended the hearing and said they want justice and accoutability.

“my son is innocent, he doesn’t deserve this.”
Veronica Ramirez//Victim’s Mother “I will never be the same. My heart is destr

The family says they don’t want another family to experience similar pain.

“We’ve got the holidays – extremely difficult, as you can see – and I want people to be responsible. We know what we need to do. We want everybody to take responsibility. There is a wrong and there is a right,” said Fernando Ramirez, Malliarodakis’ stepfather

Coniglio says wrong and right will be determined by the court.

“We’re stuck in a process where we have to figure out what the right thing to do is here,” he said, “and so that’s kind of the task of everybody involved. We’re all trying to do the right thing as far as what the law says should happen.”

Hernandez will be back in court for a preliminary hearing on December 16, 2016.

ORIGINAL STORY:

A U.C. Santa Cruz student on trial for killing two in a head on collision last March will not face D.U.I. related charges.

In a Salinas courtroom Wednesday, prosecutors said blood tests on Lynnea Hernandez do not show she was legally impaired when she crashed into an oncoming car in Moss Landing.

KION’s Mariana Hicks was in the courtroom today and will have reaction from one victim’s family as a new set of charges are filed.