San Diego DA tries to stop early release of man who killed 4, injured 7

The state prisons department, as part of its ongoing policy to protect inmates and staff from the coronavirus, is slated to release early Friday a man sentenced to nearly a decade for killing four people and injuring seven when he drove a pickup truck over the side of a transition ramp on the Coronado Bridge in San Diego. The district attorney is trying to prevent it at the last minute.

It's been a recurring theme among some prosecutors during the pandemic after the Judicial Council and the prisons department first issued statewide health guidelines this summer. The policies to release most pretrial defendants on zero bail or prisoners early from their sentences have been among the most contested decisions stemming from the court shutdowns.

The case of Richard Anthony Sepolio, 27, who is set to be released Friday after serving two years and 10 months of a nine-year, eight-month sentence, is no different.

In a letter sent Wednesday to Gov. Gavin Newsom and Kathleen Allison, secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, San Diego District Attorney Summer Stephan said the decision was a "miscarriage of justice."

"This very release is unconscionable," Stephan said in a statement. The prisons department "decision is re-victimizing the family and friends of the four people killed and seven injured who have been devastated by their loss and continue to deal with the financial, emotional, mental and physical trauma caused by the defendant."

The prisons department said its decision was based on good behavior credits and its expedited release policy during the pandemic.

In an interview Thursday, Sepolio's attorney, Paul J. Pfingst of Higgs Fletcher & Mack LLP, said he was shocked by Stephan's last-minute attempt to stop the release of his client.

"I cannot begin to understand why the district attorney objected to him being treated the same way as every other prisoner in the state correctional system," Pfingst said. "I don't know why anyone would treat this fine young man worse than the robbers, assaulters, domestic violence perpetrators and rapists who have been released."

The prisons department earlier this year implemented an expedited release policy it said was aimed at "amplifying actions to protect staff and those incarcerated in the state's 35 adult prisons." The policy created a pathway for thousands of prisoners, some convicted of violent crimes, to be released back into society before serving their sentences. Some prosecutors have objected to the releases.

Pfingst said Sepolio earned his good behavior credits for participating in a fire camp and completing educational programming as part of a rehabilitation program.

Sepolio, a former Navy petty officer, was convicted of four counts of vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and one count of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs causing injury in February 2019. A jury acquitted him of the most serious charge, gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated.

Prosecutors said he was driving upwards of 80 miles per hour when he lost control of the truck, careening into Chicano Park, where 1,000 people were attending a motorcycle rally.

Sepolio testified at trial that when he got onto the bridge, he sped up to pass a vehicle that wouldn't let him merge, Stephan said. His truck then hit the inside guardrail, veered across traffic, hit the outside guardrail and then went over the side of the bridge.

Stephan said Sepolio doesn't deserve to be released early because he "continues to deny and minimize the crime by refusing to admit he was speeding and denying being impaired while arguing with his girlfriend on the phone, which resulted in the devastating crash."

Pfingst said Sepolio has denied being impaired because the record shows that he had a blood-alcohol level of .06% at the time of the crash, below the .08% threshold which California considers too intoxicating to drive.

"He had an unblemished record before this and he was driving with a blood-alcohol level below the legal limit," Pfingst said. "I have never heard of a district attorney singling out for increased punishment someone who was driving with a blood-alcohol level below the legal limit. This is a first."