CAMARILLO : Man Pleads Guilty in Hit-and-Run Death

A Camarillo man has pleaded guilty in Ventura County Superior Court to vehicular manslaughter in the hit-and-run death of a Simi Valley assistant city planner in June.

Daniel Oseguera, 28, faces up to 12 years in state prison after pleading guilty on Tuesday to charges of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and felony hit-and-run in the accident that killed Steven Sugimoto, 28, west of Moorpark.

Sugimoto was bicycling west along the paved shoulder of California 118 about 4:15 p.m. June 10 when Oseguera approached from the rear in a 1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Kim George Gibbons.

Witnesses told investigators that Oseguera was speeding and passing cars on the right when he slammed into Sugimoto, throwing him to the ground, Gibbons said. Sugimoto suffered massive head and internal injuries and died later at Pleasant Valley Hospital, Gibbons said.

Oseguera sped up after the impact and drove away, and police chased him for 5 1/2 miles to Lewis Road in Somis, where a passenger in his car, 30-year-old David Rojas of Oxnard, grabbed the wheel and persuaded him to stop, Gibbons said.

Tests taken nearly two hours afterward showed that Oseguera had a blood-alcohol content of 0.17%, more than twice the legal 0.08% limit, Gibbons said. But he said there was no evidence that Oseguera had used drugs, despite his admission to police that he had injected heroin an hour before the accident.