LAS VEGAS — A judge decided Thursday that the man who killed another driver by driving drunk at 140 mph and tearing his car in half will spend at least four years in prison.
Charlie Hernandez was driving too fast in a Dodge Challenger on March 22, 2024, on Las Vegas highway near Cheyenne Avenue. He hit a Hyundai Accent that was turning from Walnut Road onto the highway. Police say the force of the crash split the Hyundai in two and flipped the Challenger over.
The 38-year-old driver of the Hyundai died in the accident. At the time, cops said that a passenger had been seriously hurt.
According to the papers, investigators looked at the Challenger’s internal computer and found that the car was going 140 mph about three seconds before the airbags went off. Hernandez is said to have pressed the gas pedal all the way down. The car was going 127 mph just one instant before it crashed.
“Clark County, we HAVE to do better!” After the crash, Metro cops put something on social media. “Reckless decisions are putting families through pain!” “End this terrible situation now!”
Hernandez took a plea deal last year on a charge of DUI cause death. As part of the deal, the judge would send him to jail, but the prosecutors would not be able to ask for a certain sentence. State law says that people who get a DUI that ends in death must go to jail for at least two years and no more than twenty years. A person who is convicted of DUI with the intent to kill can be in jail for up to eight years before they can have a parole hearing.
A law passed in 2023, known as “Rex’s Law,” made it possible for drivers going more than 50 miles per hour over the speed limit to get up to 10 years in jail if they caused a fatal accident. It had been six years before.
Judge Bita Yeager of the Clark County District Court gave Hernandez a sentence of 4 to 12 years in prison on Thursday.
“I did something wrong.” Hernandez told Yeager, “I wish I could take everything back, but I know I can’t.” This was before she gave him his sentence. Hernandez also said he thought he was the least affected of a group of people who had been to a party and made a bad choice.
Hernandez and his lawyer told the judge that Hernandez had never been in trouble with the law before the accident and that he was a new dad.
His family said that Chavez came to the United States from Guatemala and was working as a cook. They talked to each other in Spanish with the help of a translator.
Geronimo Chavez said, “He was going 140 miles per hour, which is not okay.” “I drive too, but I wouldn’t go that fast on the freeway.”
“A son is a widower when his wife dies.” A kid is an orphan when he loses a parent. César Chavez said, “But there’s no name for this kind of death.”
Angelica Chavez, Chavez’s niece, told me how important justice is when someone else kills someone.
“We always try to look to the future, and when it’s cut short because of someone else’s actions, I think there should be justice,” she said.
Yeager said that the 140-mile-per-hour number stood out among the DUI cases she saw before she made her choice.
She said, “I don’t think this is the kind of case where the minimums are right.”
Hernandez will be able to get parole in 2029, thanks to the time already spent. In the courtroom, his family cried as Yeager read her punishment.
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