Bail Is Set at $25,000 for New DUI Charge

Danny David Ornelas appeared in court Tuesday to face new drunk driving charges and was greeted by family members of the Newport Beach woman he ran down and killed in a 1988 drunken binge.

He also was scolded by a judge who hiked his bail to $25,000 for the misdemeanor charge.

“I cannot conceive of anybody in their right mind who, having slaughtered another person while under the influence of alcohol, is out there doing it again and reckless driving,” Municipal Judge Margaret R. Anderson told Ornelas, who stood with his head down.

The 26-year-old waiter pleaded not guilty to the new charge, filed Monday after his arrest in Newport Beach on suspicion of drunk driving.

Ornelas, who moved to Huntington Beach after he was freed from prison, made headlines 7 1/2 years ago for fatally striking 37-year-old Debbie Killelea outside her Balboa Peninsula home as the mother of three was flagging him to slow down. The accident had been unwittingly recorded on videotape by a passenger in the car Ornelas was driving.

Killelea’s mother and sister said Tuesday they had long feared it would only be a matter of time before Ornelas would be back in court on alcohol-related charges.

“It never goes away,” Julia Kilfoy, Killelea’s mother, said outside the courtroom, her voice choked with emotion.

“It just surprised me it took so long,” said Mary Coleman, the victim’s sister. “He’s such a monster.”

Anderson set a March 5 trial date after raising Ornelas’ bail from $1,400 to $25,000, higher than the $10,000 amount requested by a prosecutor.

Deputy Public Defender Jeannette Noceda said she is sympathetic to Killelea’s family, but her client served his time, completed parole and now is charged with a misdemeanor that does not warrant a $25,000 bail.

She said Ornelas is married and has a 17-month-old child, and he is not a flight risk.

If convicted, Ornelas faces up to six months in County Jail and a $1,000 fine, Noceda said.

In 1989, an Orange County Superior Court jury convicted Ornelas of grossly negligent vehicular manslaughter, and a judge sentenced him to five to 10 years in prison. But an appellate court overturned the conviction on the grounds that the judge gave improper instructions to the jury before deliberations.

In 1991, he was convicted a second time of a lesser charge of vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated. The judge sentenced him to two years in prison but set him free because he already had served that much time.

Killelea had been walking with two of her three children in an alley behind her home on the Balboa Peninsula when a drunk Ornelas, then 19, struck and killed her. Her death sparked public outrage against drunk driving and prompted renewed calls for speed bumps and stop signs in the alley where Killelea died, and others like it.

In the new case, Deputy Dist. Atty. Elizabeth Otter said Ornelas might face additional charges of reckless driving and having an open container of alcohol in his car, misdemeanors that carry a potential jail sentence, not prison.

Ornelas was arrested about 1:40 a.m. Monday after police spotted two cars racing at speeds reaching 50 mph through a 30-mph neighborhood near Dover and Cliff drives, officials said. An empty beer can was on the floor by his 26-year-old passenger, and three unopened beer cans were in the car, police said.

Ornelas said he had drunk two beers at a friend’s house before he got behind the wheel, police said. His passenger, the driver of the other car and her passenger were not drunk and were released without citations.

Department of Motor Vehicles records show Ornelas has received three traffic tickets since 1993, two for speeding and one for a registration infraction.

Killelea’s relatives said Tuesday they will come back to court to follow the case.

“It’s important to see that justice is done this time,” Kilfoy said.