A 21-year-old man pleaded guilty and was immediately sentenced to a year in jail for a hit-and-run collision that killed a bicyclist in Laguna Beach.
Dylan Thomas Randluby accepted a plea deal he originally turned down in October from Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert Fitzgerald, according to Deputy District Attorney Stephen Cornwell.
Randluby admitted felony hit-and-run with injury, as well as misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence. If convicted at trial, he could have faced up to four years in prison, Cornwell said.
Attorneys were about a week-and-a-half away from possibly starting trial when the defendant took the plea deal, the prosecutor said.
Randluby’s attorney, Jan Christie, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Randluby was driving on North Coast Highway just before 7 p.m. on June 17, 2014, when he swerved for unknown reasons and his 2005 Toyota Prius struck 55-year-old John Greg Colvin in the bike lane.
Randluby kept going, and two motorists who saw what happened called 911 and followed him until he stopped in the parking lot at El Morro Elementary School at 8681 North Coast Highway, according to authorities.
Colvin’s liver was lacerated in the collision, and the windshield of Randluby’s car was shattered, Cornwell said.
There was evidence Randluby was talking to someone on his phone just before the collision, but the defendant said his phone had “gone missing” when police questioned him and investigators could not prove if that contributed to Colvin’s death, the prosecutor said.
–City News Service