A $99,950 settlement involving the prosecution of a defendant in a crash that killed an off-duty Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy nearly 17 years ago was approved Tuesday by the Orange County Board of Supervisors.
The board voted 4-0, with Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento abstaining, to settle the part of a lawsuit against the state and county involving Orange County District Attorney’s Office investigator Wesley Vandiver, an expert on traffic crashes.
The lawsuit continues with other defendants and is awaiting trial, said attorney Dale Galipo, who represents the plaintiff, Cole Wilkins.
Wilkins was convicted of first-degree murder in the July 7, 2006, crash that killed off-duty L.A. County Sheriff’s Deputy David Piquette, but it was overturned on appeal by the state Supreme Court and sent back for a retrial in 2013.
Two years later, the Orange County Public Defender’s Office began representing Wilkins and raised a motion of outrageous governmental misconduct based on the changing of a California Highway Patrol report assigning blame for the cause of the crash from Wilkins to Piquette.
An Orange County Superior Court judge ruled prosecutors could not pursue a first-degree murder charge based on the misconduct in the case.
The outrageous governmental misconduct stemmed from the failure to turn over the changed police report to defense attorneys before the defendant’s first trial. The state Commission on Judicial Performance last year cleared Orange County Superior Court Judge Michael Murray, the prosecutor in the first trial, of any official misconduct when he was prosecuting the case against Wilkins.
Wilkins stole several appliances from a Menifee home while it was under construction and squeezed them in a Ford F-250 truck’s cab. He failed to secure the loot properly and did not put the tailgate down.
Wilkins left the scene and, about 5 a.m., was driving on the Riverside (91) Freeway when a stove slipped out onto the highway, triggering the crash that killed Piquette. The deputy managed to swerve out of the way of the stove, but he slammed into a big-rig truck that jackknifed and plopped onto Piquette’s car, crushing the victim to death.
Wilkins was eventually convicted of second-degree murder in the second trial, but appellate court justices reduced it to involuntary manslaughter.
“We agreed to settle with (Vandiver) because based on the evidence he was less involved,” Galipo said. “This is only a partial settlement.”
A pretrial hearing date is scheduled for July 7 when a trial date is expected to be set, Galipo said.