Driver pleads no contest to manslaughter, assault in fatal 2017 road rage crash in Gardena
Driver pleads no contest to manslaughter, assault in fatal 2017 road rage crash in Gardena
by City News Service
TORRANCE — A 26-year-old Hawthorne man pleaded no contest Monday to voluntary manslaughter and assault with a deadly weapon in a road-rage crash that left a motorcyclist dead in Gardena in 2017.
Oscar Villa was originally charged with murder in the death of Jaylen Ramon Bell Maxwell, 22, of Los Angeles, and is set to be sentenced March 30. His plea was negotiated with prosecutors, according to a spokesman for the District Attorney’s Office who did not know the agreed-upon sentence.
Villa was driving near Western Avenue and Gardena Boulevard on Dec. 21, 2017, when he got into an altercation with Maxwell, according to testimony presented at a Jan. 16, 2019, hearing in which he was ordered to stand trial.
Villa followed Maxwell as he drove away and ran over the motorcycle before crashing into a building, according to Deputy District Attorney Ryan Gould.
Villa was arrested that day by Gardena police and has remained behind bars since then on $2 million bail, jail records show.
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