Last Updated on April 27, 2022 by C-CAR
Pizza deliveryman Andrew Scott Walters was driving his Chevrolet Cruze up Van Buren Boulevard in Jurupa Valley an hour before midnight on April 20, 2019, when he struck 30-year-old bicyclist Rigoberto Guzman Jr., pulled Guzman’s bicycle from beneath his car and drove away.
Another vehicle possibly then hit Guzman, who died, according to details in a court document.
What followed next, the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office said in asking a judge to impose prison time, was an audacious attempt to avoid culpability and a “tornado of lies” by Walters, 29.
Deputy Public Defender Melissa McConaghay countered that Guzman was “wandering in the middle of the road with his bicycle late at night” and was under the influence of alcohol. Before driving away, McConaghay said, Walters called 911 to report seeing an injured man in the road.
What’s more, McConaghay said in arguing against prison time, Walters is the caretaker for his blind, amputee father.
Ultimately, Walters pleaded guilty to the court — a deal not involving the DA’s Office — to hit and run causing injury or death and faced up to two years in custody. And on Monday, April 25, Superior Court Judge Thomas Kelly gave Walters a choice: 364 days, either in jail, work-release or home confinement.
“In the totality of the circumstances, the court rightfully found that my client was not suitable for state prison,” McConaghay wrote in an email. “In regards to how he will serve his custody time, it will be the option that allows him to continue to keep his part-time job and to take care of his father.”
The DA’s Office had no comment on the sentence, spokesman John Hall said.
Deputy District Attorney Melanie A. Deutsch laid out prosecutors’ case for incarceration in a sentencing brief.
After the collision, Walters called 911 and said he was driving when he saw a person who “looks like he got hit by a car” but failed to note that he had hit Guzman. Walters continued back to Pizza Hut, where he told his manager that a drunk homeless man “out of nowhere” had thrown a bicycle at his car, causing damage. Walters then went home.
Walters and his father, Russell Hadley, then drove to 58th and Hudson streets, where they watched deputies investigate the collision.
“Defendant and Mr. Hadley again spoke about the collision and ‘thought about calling’ law enforcement but decided to wait,” Deutsch wrote. Hadley phoned investigators the next morning.
But Walters still had trouble coming clean, Deutsch wrote. He told the state Department of Motor Vehicles that after removing the bicycle, he heard another car hit Guzman and drove after that car but couldn’t catch it. He went to the pizzeria and “told his boss everything that happened.” And Walters told the Probation Department officer who was writing the pre-sentencing report — two years after the crash — that Walters heard that “there is a reward or anyone who turns in the truck driver who allegedly struck the victim.”
There was no reward, Deutsch wrote.
“Rather than doing what is expected of drivers, namely to stay and identify oneself as involved in a collision, he disregarded the law and the dying victim and began his tornado of lies which has yet to cease,” Deutsch wrote.
