Wealth manager who fled the scene of hit-and-run will likely avoid jail sentence for felony vehicular manslaughter

San Francisco Chronicle / 2-13-2024

A Piedmont wealth manager who allegedly fled the scene of a hit-and-run — leaving his wife in the car and a dying man on the pavement — will likely avoid a jail sentence.

Timothy Hamano, 67, pleaded no contest Tuesday to charges of felony vehicular manslaughter and fleeing the scene of an accident, stemming from a Mother’s Day crash that left bystanders stunned. On the afternoon of May 9, 2021, police said Hamano plowed his white Lexus into a parked SUV on a leafy boulevard in Oakland, striking a pedestrian on the sidewalk.

The impact threw 41-year-old Gregory Turnage Jr. onto the hood of the Lexus and then back to the ground on the 3800 block of Park Boulevard, a strip of shops and houses with a tree-lined median. As Turnage lay bleeding on the sidewalk, witnesses said, Hamano opened his door and walked around the crumpled front bumper, looking down at the gravely injured man.

He then fled on foot, leaving Turnage behind as well as his wife, who sat in the front passenger seat of the Lexus behind a deployed airbag. Hamano turned himself in the next day after Oakland police issued a warrant for his arrest. Although restaurant receipts obtained by police indicate that he had been drinking prior to the crash, prosecutors lacked sufficient evidence to charge him with driving while intoxicated.

Link (paywall): https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/piedmont-wealth-manager-house-arrest-jail-18655901.php

Highlights, from the link:

• Hamano spent the past three years on home detention with an ankle monitor affter posting $125,000 bail on August, 2021.

• "I gave the highest possible sentence that I could (six years)."-- Trial Judge

• Under California law, defendants typically serve half the time to which they are sentenced, which means Hamano has roughly three months left.

• The attorney representing Turnage’s 13-year-old son in a wrongful death lawsuit related to the incident believes Hamano’s attorneys ran out the clock to avoid jail time, by delaying hearings and plea negotiations until it no longer made sense to incarcerate the defendant.

• "They successfully gamed the system," said the attorney. "This case sends a very clear message. If you’re drunk, you are driving, and you kill someone — run away. It’s way better for you."

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Wow