A Las Vegas driver who drunkenly crashed into another vehicle on the 5 Freeway in Irvine at more than 100 mph was convicted of murder Tuesday for setting off a series of chain-reaction collisions that ultimately left a mother dead.
An Orange County Superior Court jury found Irving Abel Aguilar-Calixto, 26, guilty of second-degree murder, as well as driving under the influence and causing great bodily injury, for his role in a series of crashes on a darkened stretch of the southbound 5 near the 405 interchange on Aug. 23, 2018, in which 24-year-old Maria Osuna was killed and at least five others, including Osuna’s infant child, were injured.
There was no dispute during the trial that Aguilar-Calixto drove under the influence and was responsible for the initial crash. Jurors ultimately found that he was also responsible for the numerous collisions that followed over a more than ten minute span.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Dan Feldman told jurors that Aguilar-Calixto decided to head home to Las Vegas after drinking with friends at an Airbnb in Anaheim, ignoring friends who worried he was too drunk to make the long drive. Aguilar-Calixto sped down the southbound 5, the prosecutor said, wrongly believing it was the 15 freeway toward Vegas.
Aguilar-Calixto crashed his Dodge Challenger into a Prius without braking at 108 miles per hour, Feldman said. A tow truck driver who was driving in the area called 911, and the Prius was apparently able to move to the side of the freeway. But Aguilar-Calixto’s disabled Challenger, with its lights off, was left blocking a freeway lane.
During a second round of collisions, the driver of a Dodge van swerved to avoid the Challenger and hit a freeway median, blocking the HOV lane. Three more vehicles quickly hit the Challenger, including an SUV that flipped as it went into the freeway divider, landing upside down.
The prosecutor said that by that time debris was strewn across the roadway, five vehicles were disabled in freeway lanes and the occupants of the vehicles were running for their lives to reach safety. In a call to a dispatcher played in court, one of the drivers described collision after collision seconds after each other.
Another driver abruptly hit their brakes to avoid hitting the Challenger, and Osuna rear-ended them. Osuna reportedly took off her seat belt in order to turn around and check on her infant in the back seat of her car when her vehicle was rear-ended, killing her.
An estimated 12 minutes separated the first crash and the fatal collision. The crashes reportedly took place in a portion of the freeway with relatively little ambient lighting.
In a recorded conversation played for jurors by the prosecutor, Aguilar-Calixto told a CHP officer that he knew driving while drunk is dangerous, but indicated that he wasn’t “sloppy drunk,” explaining that “I was drunk but could still function.” Investigators later determined that his blood alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit for driving.
Aguilar-Calixto’s attorney, Frederick Fascenelli, argued that Aguilar-Calixto’s responsibility for the crashes ended after the initial collision.
A 911 dispatcher told the tow truck driver to move his vehicle, which was outfitted with lights, off the freeway, Fascenelli said, despite the tow truck driver arguing that doing so could lead to an accident. The crash scene was safe before the tow truck driver was ordered to move his vehicle, a decision that broke Aguilar-Calixto’s chain of responsibility, the defense attorney argued.
Aguilar-Calixto is scheduled to return to court for sentencing on Dec. 17.
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