Former LAPD officer gets 15 years to life for drunk driving fatal crash in Whittier
A former Los Angeles Police Department officer was sentenced to 15 years to life on Friday for a 2017 drunk-driving crash in Whittier that killed a family involved in the wreckage.
Edgar Verduzco, 35, entered an open guilty plea earlier this year to three counts of second-degree murder and one felony count each of driving under the influence of alcohol causing injury and driving with a .08 percent blood alcohol content causing injury, according to the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office.
A judge selected a sentence of two concurrent terms of 15 years to life in prison as well as one concurrent term of three years in prison for driving under the influence of alcohol, causing injury.
While off-duty eight years ago, Verduzco was driving 150 mph in his 2016 Chevy Camaro while under the influence of alcohol and struck two vehicles on the 605 Freeway.
One of the cars that was struck hit a center divider and burst into flames, killing three family members: Maribel Davila, 52, Mario Davila, 60, and their 19-year-old son, Oscar Davila. The driver of the other vehicle, a mother with a baby in a car seat, suffered minor injuries.
The Davila family ran a salon and barbershop. The Davilas were survived by three other children.
Veruzco, a two-year veteran of the LAPD, was 27 years old at the time of the 2017 crash.
"The law applies equally to all, especially to those who are supposed to enforce it. This is another reminder that driving after consuming alcohol is not a mistake – it is a choice – that can have devastating consequences," District Attorney Nathan Hochman said. "And for the Davila family, that one choice has left their loved ones with a profound grief from which they will never recover."