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Pardoned Jan. 6 rioter gets 10 years for deadly DUI crash

homesafetytechpros — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 23:58:19 +0000

Background: Emily Hernandez arriving at court in Franklin County, Missouri (KSDK/YouTube). Inset: Emily Hernandez at the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot (Department of Justice)

A Jan. 6 rioter from Missouri who made headlines for swiping Nancy Pelosi’s name plate during the Capitol attack went from pardon to prison this week as she was sentenced Wednesday for causing a fatal crash while driving drunk on the wrong side of the highway.

Emily Hernandez, 25, got hit with a 10-year sentence by Franklin County Judge Ryan Helfrich for the death of 32-year-old Victoria Wilson on Jan. 5, 2022, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and local NBC affiliate KSDK. She received 10 years and another seven years for injuring Wilson’s husband, Ryan E. Wilson — who was riding with her that night — with the sentences to be served concurrently.

“No matter how loud I cried out to her, I couldn’t wake her,” Wilson said in court Wednesday, where he reportedly used a cane to walk due to the severity of his injuries, per the Post-Dispatch. “I couldn’t reach her because of the air bags.”

According to her criminal complaint, Hernandez was driving drunk on the wrong side of the highway during the fatal crash that killed Wilson and injured her husband. The crash happened just after 7 p.m., with their cars colliding in the eastbound lane of I-44.

Hernandez had a blood-alcohol content of .20% when tested after the crash, more than double the legal limit.

“What I did was ungodly and I will live with that shame for the rest of my life,” Hernandez said at her sentencing, according to the Post-Dispatch. “I am sorry for what I did and if I could take it all back, I would.”

Victoria Wilson’s family told KSDK after the court proceeding that while it’s nice to see justice be served, there’s “an empty hole” in their hearts that will never be filled.

“Nothing will bring her back,” said Victoria’s mom, Tonie Donaldson. “It was some relief to be able to turn and look her in her eyes and tell her how much harm she had really done to us … that’s a choice she made, she has to live with it.”

Hernandez, who pleaded guilty to the drunk driving incident, was pardoned by President Donald Trump last week on his first day in office — along with other rioters — after she pleaded guilty in January 2022 to a misdemeanor for entering the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6.

After the attack, Hernandez was seen in pictures and on video grinning while holding a fragment of a sign appearing to identify Pelosi’s office. She pleaded guilty to one count of entering and remaining in a restricted building after originally being charged with disorderly conduct, disruptive conduct in the Capitol, one count of parading, demonstrating, or picketing in the Capitol building, and “steal[ing], sell[ing], convey[ing] or dispos[ing] of any thing of value of the United States.”

The fatal crash that claimed Victoria Wilson’s life happened just six days before Hernandez was scheduled to plead guilty. She was given a 30-day jail sentence for the Jan. 6 charge.

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Man sentenced to 100 years for deadly 2-state rampage

homesafetytechpros — Sun, 15 Dec 2024 03:04:05 +0000

Inset: Christopher McDonnell (Henderson Police Department via KLAS). Background: The location of a deadly shooting in Henderson, Nevada (KLAS).

A troubled Texas man with a distinctive skull face tattoo was sentenced to 100 years in prison for an 11-hour shooting rampage targeting motorists on freeways and roads in two states that killed a man and wounded several others.

Christopher McDonnell, 32, learned his fate on Friday in the death of Kevin Mendiola Jr., 22. McDonnell pleaded guilty but mentally ill in October to charges of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit murder and discharging a firearm at or into an occupied vehicle.

He, his brother and his brother’s then-wife were indicted in connection with their 2020 Thanksgiving Day shooting spree that began in Nevada and ended in Arizona, where the defendants were apprehended when the car they were in rolled over.

The family spoke out about the pain.

“The hurt, the pain, the guilt and the stress that these three individuals put on my family,” said Mendiola’s brother, also wounded in the attack. “Our lives will never be the same after this.”

In a written statement, McConnell took responsibility, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

“I take full responsibility for my own wrongdoings, and I appreciate the court’s for administering justice,” McDonnell said, local CBS affiliate KLAS reported.

His public defender, Ryan Bashor, said Friday his client was a “troubled, troubled person.” He asked the court to sentence him to between 21 and 52 years in prison.

But prosecutors pushed for the maximum.

“The heinous and random nature of these crimes threatened many unsuspecting citizens in our community,” said Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson in the press release announcing the indictment. “This act of mass violence left both physical and emotional scars on the victims and their families, and our thoughts and prayers are with them.”

Prosecutors said McConnell’s brother’s then-wife was the driver as the two brothers fired indiscriminately out of the vehicle’s windows at cars and into a 7-Eleven in Henderson, Nevada, on Nov. 26, 2020, killing Mendiola in a vehicle.

A fourth victim was at the store with his daughter and 1-year-old grandchild.

He died shielding bullets from his girlfriend, Jayde Libby, who said it was “the most heroic thing one could ever do” at Friday’s sentencing.

“He saved me, and I’ll never know why,” she added.

Another 7-Eleven victim later testified that the tattooed defendant shot at him as he walked out of the store. The bleeding victim — with a bullet puncturing his lung — ducked back into the store and told the clerk to dial 911 before the two fled for their lives out the back.

“I call him Skeletor,” the man testified, the Review-Journal’s Briana Erickson reported.

The victim’s daughter was in a car in the parking lot with her own young daughter in the backseat.

She recalled the terror.

“I pleaded for my life,” she testified. “I said, ‘Please don’t shoot. I don’t have any money. You can take my car. You can take anything you want. Please don’t shoot.”

She said the gunman pointed the gun at her daughter in the backseat as the little girl screamed.

“He comes to my window and tells me something along the lines of I am very lucky,” she said, adding that the man turned his attention away from her and to another vehicle.

“I heard him say he was God and that there is an upcoming war coming,” she added.

After the 7-Eleven shooting, the defendants shot and wounded a female driver near Lake Las Vegas and drove to Parker, Arizona, where they were arrested after the Toyota Camry they were in crashed and rolled and after a shootout with authorities that wounded McConnell’s brother. Authorities said more than a dozen people reported being targeted in the spree.

McDonnell’s brother awaits trial, while his ex-wife is set to be sentenced in June.

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Doctor, nurse sentenced in deadly plastic surgery

homesafetytechpros — Sun, 22 Sep 2024 06:32:45 +0000

Left to right: Heather Alice Lang Vass and Carlos Chacon in court (KGTV) Inset: Megan Espinoza (Glen Abbey Memorial Park & Mortuary).

A California plastic surgeon and his nurse were sentenced for their roles in a botched plastic surgery that killed a patient and mother of two.

Dr. Carlos Chacon was sentenced on Friday to three years in prison as part of a plea deal to manslaughter in the killing of Megan Espinoza, 36, who died from a fatal dose of drugs, including ketamine and fentanyl. He is also banned from practicing medicine for life in California.

Chacon’s nurse, Heather Alice Lang Vass, was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter. She surrendered her nursing license but can eventually apply to have it reinstated.

Espinoza’s mother, Judith Gorcey, took Vass to task for not calling 911, San Diego’s ABC affiliate KGTV reported.

“That man and his nurse who are responsible for callously ending Megan’s life gave her the death penalty, and they gave all of us who loved her a life sentence of extreme pain,” Gorcey said.

The defendants apologized, San Diego’s CBS affiliate KFMB reported.

“You are a far better man than I ever could be to stand behind those rails. You should know at my core, if I could trade places with Megan, I would,” Chacon said to Espinoza’s father.

Vass added in a statement: “Her death will haunt me for the rest of my days that I didn’t call for help.”

David Gorcey, Espinoza’s father, decried the light punishment.

“The minimum sentencing of three years seems, well, painfully inappropriate,” he said.

As Law&Crime previously reported, Megan Espinoza’s heart stopped at Divino Plastic Surgery six days before Christmas in 2018.

The probable cause warrant said Espinoza went into cardiac arrest mid-surgery at around 2:20 p.m. on Dec. 19, 2018.

Chacon reacted by leaving the room to see four other patients between 3:15 p.m. and 5 p.m., calling two doctors to ask for their advice rather than calling 911, ordering staffers, some of whom had no medical background, not to call 911, and lying to Megan Espinoza’s husband about what was happening, according to the warrant,

“Chacon made the conscious decision to stop others from providing emergency lifesaving efforts on at least 7 occasions,” the warrant said.

Prosecutors said that Chacon did not call 911 until 3 hours after Espinoza’s heart stopped. By then, it was much too late to save her.

Espinoza died on Jan. 28, 2019, at 10:26 p.m., the warrant said. An autopsy determined she died from “ischemic encephalopathy […] caused by a lack of blood flow and oxygen to the brain.”

In December 2022, KGTV reported that the victim’s family had settled a lawsuit against Chacon.

An obituary noted that Megan Espinoza was a kindergarten teacher, devoted wife, and mother.

“Megan’s teaching career was something for which she had the utmost passion,” the memorial reads. “She taught kindergarten and T-K for the Cajon Valley Union School District, and taught in San Ysidro and San Diego earlier in her career. Megan loved spending time at the beach, cooking, gardening, going on walks, taking yoga classes and taking pictures, especially of her boys. She loved being with family and arranging get-togethers with her many friends, but being with Moises and her boys were her greatest joys.”

Law&Crime’s Matt Naham contributed to this report.

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