A man is facing 30 years to life in state prison in connection with his no contest plea to murder and DUI charges stemming from a crash last year in Pomona that killed three women returning from a baby shower and injured two other people, including a 12-year-old girl.
Victor Siharath, now 37, pleaded no contest Wednesday to three counts of second-degree murder and one count of DUI causing injury, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
He is due back in a Pomona courtroom for sentencing Sept. 18.
At a news conference last year announcing the charges, then-District Attorney George Gascón said Siharath ran a red light while traveling “well above the speed limit of 35 mph” and slammed into another vehicle carrying five people.
The Pomona resident had a prior DUI conviction in 2014 from San Bernardino County, and he was given a legal warning at the time that if he drove drunk again and caused a death that he could be charged with murder, according to Gascón.
The deadly crash occurred about 11 p.m. March 2, 2024, at White Avenue and Phillips Boulevard, according to the Pomona Police Department.
The victims were identified as Lorena Morales Peru, 58, of Montclair, and Alejandra Olaez and Yesenia Ochoa, both 33 and from Pomona.
Morales Peru’s husband and Olaez’s 12-year-old daughter, who were among the five people in the car that was struck, were injured, Gascón said last year.
Ochoa’s cousin, Cindy Ramos, told reporters soon after the crash, “This is a terrible tragedy, you know, of innocent people that were doing a celebration of a new life, and we just want justice for our families that were left behind … the children that were left behind.”
She said then that the victims’ families wanted Siharath “to be prosecuted to the fullest extent,” adding that she felt that Siharath “doesn’t deserve any type of sympathy from anybody.”
Relatives said Ochoa was in the process of adopting her 11-year-old nephew when she was killed.
Siharath was arrested by Pomona police the night of the crash, and has remained behind bars since then, jail records show.