OAKLAND — A Menlo Park man was sentenced to 210 days of home arrest and 30 hours of neighborhood service after pleading no contest to manslaughter in reference to a 2018 crash on Interstate 880.
Rashad Attaway, 47, was convicted of killing 58-year-old Lori Peterson by crashing his 1997 Mercedes sedan right into a 1996 Ford Explorer pushed by Peterson’s husband. The April 18, 2018 crash prompted the SUV to roll over and spill gasoline everywhere in the freeway, based on witness testimony.
Attaway was charged as a result of a number of witnesses informed police the Mercedes was rushing and weaving by way of site visitors till it misplaced management, based on the California Freeway Patrol. The plea deal was finalized in late January. However the protection deliberate to name witnesses to contradict these statements, and was ready to argue that it was a tragic automobile accident, based on court docket data.
Lori Peterson’s husband, Craig Peterson, testified on the July 2021 preliminary listening to that he was heading northbound on Interstate 880 in Fremont, to assist one other member of the family who was having a medical process that day. He mentioned he heard his spouse say “look out”; inside a second, he noticed a blur and felt the impression of the crash.
“Simultaneous with me seeing the blur, I felt a tough impression on the right-rear of the automobile,” Peterson testified. “The rear finish of my automobile spun round to my left and we grew to become perpendicular to the preliminary course of site visitors.”
He testified that some good Samaritans stopped to assist and pulled Lori Peterson from the wreck, involved the gasoline spill may begin a hearth, however that Peterson by no means regained consciousness. Her obituary describes her as a retired nurse and devoted household girl who liked knitting and was lively in a neighborhood church.
“Whereas Lori liked being a nurse and the challenges of administration, she could be fast to inform you that her most necessary work was elevating two wonderful youngsters and caring for her household,” the obituary says. “Lori was a human dynamo! She cooked, baked, cleaned, gardened, crocheted, knitted, and painted or stained each floor of her house in Campbell.”
Attaway will get credit score for sooner or later he spent in jail after his arrest. He has been free on $150,000 bail for the reason that expenses have been filed in July 2021, court docket data present. The phrases of his sentencing require digital monitoring, however permit Attaway to depart his house at predetermined occasions to see his youngster.