A avenue racer whose alcohol-fueled crash killed an Orange County Register editor was sentenced Friday to fifteen years to life in jail, then apologized and was embraced by the newsman’s widow earlier than being led away.
Louie Robert Villa, 31, took accountability for inflicting the July 30, 2020 dying of Gene Harbrecht, telling a choose and Harbrecht’s household that he was “actually sorry” for “what I precipitated.”
After the listening to, Patt Harbrecht embraced a handcuffed, sobbing Villa, and kissed him on the cheek. He tearfully thanked her. Minutes earlier, Villa had acknowledged to the courtroom that he had made plenty of poor decisions in his life, and understood the ache those that knew and liked Harbrecht are going by means of, however stated he hoped they may sooner or later “have forgiveness to me.”
“I do admire you're truly regretting what occurred,” Orange County Superior Court docket Choose Kimberly Menninger informed Villa. “However you must perceive it won't convey again Mr. Harbrecht.”
In early August, an Orange County Superior Court docket jury discovered Villa responsible of second-degree homicide and a number of other DUI-related fees. The jurors have been unable to succeed in a consensus on whether or not Villa was participating in a avenue race on the time.
On Friday, Villa admitted that he took half in a avenue race, after prosecutors indicated they'd have in any other case sought a retrial on that particular cost.
A longtime editor of the Orange County Register, Harbrecht on the time of his dying was serving because the nationwide and worldwide editor for the higher Southern California Information Group. A music lover and devoted Angels baseball and USC soccer fan, Harbrecht was remembered by colleagues as a “newsman to his core” whose “veneer of amusing and interesting grumpiness” couldn’t masks a “coronary heart of gold.”
Brian Rokos, a Southern California Information Group reporter who labored with Harbrecht for a number of years on the Orange County Register, described him as “an in depth buddy, somebody I counted on being a life-long buddy.”
“Mates are usually not like plates or glasses. You break a kind of and you'll change it,” Rokos stated. “However you'll be able to’t change a buddy.”
Patt Harbrecht opted to not converse on the listening to however offered the choose with a letter.
Shortly earlier than midday on July 30, 2020, Villa was dashing northbound on Bristol Road together with one other driver, touring practically twice the velocity restrict with a blood-alcohol stage double to triple the authorized restrict when he broadsided a pickup truck pushed by Harbrecht, which was turning left from southbound Bristol to eastbound Santa Clara Avenue.
Bystanders pulled Harbrecht from the burning pickup and tried to assist him earlier than he was taken to UC Irvine Medical Heart, the place he died.
Dashboard video recorded by one other motorist confirmed Villa and the driving force of one other car — Ricardo Navarro Tolento — abruptly velocity off as quickly because the visitors mild at Bristol and seventeenth Road turned inexperienced, rapidly outpacing surrounding visitors. Tolento remains to be awaiting trial for his position within the alleged avenue race turned deadly crash.
Villa was beforehand convicted of a DUI in 2012, and on the time was formally warned that if he continued to drink and drive and killed somebody that he could possibly be charged with homicide. That led prosecutors to cost him with second-degree homicide — reasonably than a lesser depend of vehicular manslaughter — in reference to Harbrecht’s dying.
Throughout his trial, Villa’s protection legal professional acknowledged he had been consuming and was possible dashing, however denied that he was racing one other driver or that he was conscious of the lethal hazard of his actions.
The protection legal professional informed jurors that Villa’s view was partially blocked by one other car as he tried to keep away from a collision with Tolento, including that Villa tried to brake when he noticed Harbrecht’s pickup.
The prosecutor informed jurors that there was no proof that Villa hit his brakes, and countered that Villa was effectively conscious of the risks of impaired driving, having attended a Mom’s Towards Drunk Driving assembly following his earlier DUI conviction.
The jury ended up hanging 10 to 2 in favor of conviction concerning avenue racing, main the choose to declare a mistrial on that cost.