Last Updated on January 5, 2023 by CCAR Staff
SAN BERNARDINO >> After striking a tentative plea deal, a San Bernardino Superior Court judge Monday rescinded his offer to the man who drove a tour bus that crashed and killed eight people three years ago on Highway 38 in Yucaipa.
Before the case went to trial July 1, the attorney for Norberto Perez, 56, of Tijuana and the court came to a plea agreement. Under the original terms, Perez would plead guilty to all eight counts of vehicular manslaughter, but instead of being sentenced to the maximum 15 years in state prison he would be placed on three years’ felony probation and have a suspended six-year prison term, said Simon Umscheid, chief deputy district attorney for the Central Division of the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office.
Umscheid said his office was not in agreement with the deal.
But on Monday, the agreement was voided when Judge Harold T. Wilson decided not to accept the deal.
Wilson said the defendant had pleaded guilty to the charges July 1 in order to get the deal. However, the probation report came back with new information that made the judge change his mind. He did not elaborate on what the new information was.
“I don’t understand what happened,” said Perez’s wife, Guadalupe Bravo, who attended court Monday with her youngest son. She has attended all the hearings throughout her husband’s case. “My husband said he was culpable and I heard the judge say he could go home today.”
Perez is now scheduled to return to court Sept. 9 for trial readiness, and a trial could begin Sept. 12.
“We look forward to proceeding with the case and seeking justice on behalf of the victims,” said District Attorney Mike Ramos.
Perez’s wife spoke outside the courtroom after learning the offer was rescinded.
“I thought a judge’s word was worth something,” Bravo said. She makes the two-and-a-half-hour trip from Tijuana to San Bernardino each time her husband has had a court date, and she visits him in county jail at least monthly.
“How can a judge do this? How can he go back on his word?” she asked.
On Feb. 3, 2013, Perez was driving a tour bus from the Big Bear area back to Tijuana for Scapadas Magicas (Magical Escapes), a company based in National City.
A total of 38 people, many of them doctors and nurses working at a Tijuana hospital, boarded the bus for a day trip to the snowy San Bernardino Mountains.
Investigators determined Perez lost control of the bus on Highway 38 near Bryant Street near Yucaipa, sending it into a Saturn before veering off the road and toppling onto its side.
As it slid, the bus struck a boulder on the side of the road, according to investigators, knocking the bus upright again, moments before it crashed into a Ford pickup traveling north in the oncoming lane.
Perez was arrested in November 2015. During his preliminary hearing, California Highway Patrol officials testified that several passengers told authorities they overheard Perez making phone calls on a speakerphone to Scapadas Magicas about a faulty brake valve.
Another CHP official said he determined the brake system had many issues, including two brake drums in the vehicle’s front axle that were cracked before the trip began.
Experts testified these issues should have been noticed during Perez’s pre-trip inspection. Perez said he had done that inspection the morning of the fatal crash.
A pre-trip inspection is required by the Department of Transportation.
Bravo argued the owner of Scapadas Magicas, Ramon Ramirez Garcia, should be held criminally responsible, not her husband.
According to a report, Scapadas Magicas failed 36 percent of its safety inspections in the two years before the crash. Of its 25 vehicles, only 16 had passed inspection.
The report details the violations between February 2011 and October 2012, which included insufficient brake linings, leaky brake connections, missing wheel fasteners, oil leaks, low tire tread and inoperable headlights, taillights and turn signals.
The company also had been cited for allowing a driver with a suspended license to drive one of its commercial vehicles.
Five days after the crash, the federal government ordered the owners to shut down the company.
Umscheid said the District Attorney’s Office most likely will not seek criminal charges against the owners of the tour company because there wasn’t enough evidence to try them at that time. He said nothing has changed since.
“There is no doubt that the company was negligent,” Umscheid said in a recent interview. “But we have the burden of proof to prove beyond a reasonable doubt and that standard is significantly higher in a criminal case than a civil case.”
KILLED IN THE CRASH
• Rubicelia Escobedo Flores, 34, of Tijuana
• Aleida Adriana Arce Hernandez, 38, of Tijuana
• Elvira Garcia Jimenez, 40, her son Victor Cabrera Garcia, 13, and her mother, Guadalupe Olivas, 61, all of San Diego
• Liliana Camerina Sanchez Sauceda, 24, of Tijuana
• Mario Garcia Santoyo, 32, of Tijuana
• Fred Richardson, 72, of Mountain Home Village, the driver of the pickup the bus slammed into.
