Driver Gets 50 Years to Life in Crash Deaths of 3

Prosecutors got most of what they wanted Thursday when a judge sentenced a man to 50 years to life in prison for a deadly traffic collision that nearly wiped out an entire family.

Daniel John O’Hare, 28, of Granada Hills, was convicted earlier this month of the second-degree murders of Ernesto Antonio Medina, Ana Luz Medina and 11-year-old Carlos Medina. The only survivor of the crash was the family’s daughter, Yesenia, who is now 8.

A six-man, six-woman jury also found O’Hare guilty of evading arrest, driving under the influence, possession of a controlled substance, driving a stolen car and leaving the scene of an accident.

“This is obviously a serious tragedy for everyone concerned,” defense attorney Stephen A. DeSales said. “But the sentence should have been for manslaughter and felony drunk driving.”

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Burt Schneirow disagreed.

“I think [the sentence] offers protection to the public from people like this who choose to disregard the rules of society,” said Schneirow, who had asked for a 55-year minimum. “It was a fair sentence in accordance with the jury’s verdict.”

Grieving family members felt otherwise.

“I’m not going to tell Yesenia about the sentence,” said the girl’s grandmother, Ana Rojas. “She wanted him to stay in prison and not be released ever.”

“When we are in a car she still thinks that he will come and crash into us,” Rojas said. “Yesenia still has nightmares about the accident.”

The girl was badly hurt at 12:20 a.m. on Aug. 11, 1995, the night the Medina family car was broadsided by O’Hare at Hayvenhurst Avenue and Parthenia Street.

O’Hare, a high school dropout, had been under the influence of methaphetamine and was fleeing from police in a sport-utility vehicle, police said.

Today, Yesenia is cared for by her maternal grandmother as well as by her next-door-neighbors, Jan and Esther Linares.

She plays with dolls and goes to the park like other children, but her grandmother said she wonders if Yesenia will ever fully recover.

“Every day and night we cry together,” Rojas said. “The pain and sadness is overwhelming.”

The sentence was imposed by Judge L. Jeffrey Wiatt. Authorities said O’Hare will serve a minimum of 40 years in prison.