A 77-year-old man pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges stemming from an alleged hit-and-run crash that fatally injured a 74-year-old woman as she crossed an East Los Angeles street on her way home from a market.
Raul Juarez Carranza of East Los Angeles is charged with one felony count each of hit-and-run driving resulting in death to another person and vehicular manslaughter stemming from the Dec. 8 crash that left Maty Sanchez dead, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
The woman was struck by a pickup truck about 10:30 a.m. that day as she walked across Whittier Boulevard outside of a crosswalk near Williamson Avenue, according to the California Highway Patrol. She died a short time later at a hospital.
Carranza was allegedly making a turn when he struck the woman, prosecutors said.
Three days after the collision, the victim’s daughter issued a plea for the driver to surrender.
“To the person that hit my mom, please find it in your heart to turn yourself in,” Patty Garcia said at a news conference at the CHP’s East Los Angeles Area office. “If it would have been your mother, or your wife or your daughter … you’d be right here where I am right now, pleading.”
Carranza — who has subsequently been freed on bond — was arrested on Dec. 18 after CHP officers spotted him driving the suspected vehicle near the scene of the fatal collision, according to CHP officials, who said that media coverage generated tips that helped investigators identify him.
He is due back in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom Feb. 19, when a date is scheduled to be set for a hearing to determine if there is sufficient evidence to require him to stand trial.
Carranza faces up to seven years in state prison if convicted as charged, according to the District Attorney’s Office.