Local News in Brief : Santa Ana : No-Contest Plea Entered in Deaths of 3 Motorists
A truck driver charged in the deaths of three people who were killed when his rig rear-ended their car on the Santa Ana Freeway pleaded no contest to one felony count of vehicular manslaughter Friday.
Jackie Wayne Dillard, 55, of Fresno entered the plea, which is tantamount to a guilty plea in a criminal case. Superior Court Judge Myron S. Brown set sentencing for Jan. 10. Dillard faces a maximum sentence of 3 years in state prison.
In addition to the three people who died, 10 people were injured when Dillard’s truck careened into other cars in the April 23 accident.
According to the California Highway Patrol, Dillard was driving a semi-trailer refrigerated truck at 55 m.p.h. on the Santa Ana Freeway when he approached slow-moving traffic near the Garden Grove Freeway interchange.
The truck hit a car in the southbound lane and then veered into the northbound lanes, eventually colliding with 10 other vehicles, authorities said. The three who died--Bartolo Lozano, 66, of Fremont; his brother, Antonio Lozano, 69, of Tijuana, and Antonio Lozano’s wife, Maria, 59--were in the same car.
The CHP initially arrested Dillard on suspicion of manslaughter and felony drunk driving, but tests later showed Dillard was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
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