Last Updated on January 10, 2023 by CCAR Staff
SAN BERNARDINO >> The latest hearing in the criminal case against Norberto Perez, the driver involved in the fatal Yucaipa tour bus crash, has been postponed to Monday.
A trial readiness hearing was supposed to be held Friday in San Bernardino Superior Court, but it was delayed until Monday.
Perez has been charged with eight counts of vehicular manslaughter in connection with the 2013 crash on Highway 38 that killed seven passengers, who had taken a day trip to Big Bear Lake from Tijuana, and Fred Richardson, 72, of Mountain Home Village, who was killed when the bus hit his pickup truck.
“They keep pushing it back and pushing it back,” said Guadalupe Bravo, Perez’s wife who makes the three-hour trip from Tijuana to San Bernardino every time her husband has a court date. “I just want this to be over and to be with my husband. I know he’s not culpable. That’s not the kind of person he is.”
The 55-year-old driver was arrested and charged in November.
California Highway Patrol Officer Omar Hernandez testified during the preliminary hearing that several passengers told authorities they overheard Perez making phone calls on a speakerphone to Scapadas Magicas about a faulty brake valve.
Perez told a CHP investigator he had inspected the vehicle prior to leaving Tijuana, according to courtroom testimony.
