Three of this spring’s spate of street racing suspects were convicted of reckless driving last week, and two of them received jail sentences. An Albemarle County General District Court judge heard the three cases on July 28.
First up was Christopher Richard Cook, a 40-year-old Kents Store resident who was pulled over by radar-running Albemarle officer Aaron Pace shortly after 11 p.m. Dec. 7 on Fifth Street just outside Charlottesville city limits. In court, the officer alleged Cook’s dark blue Audi caught his attention due to a loud exhaust and a speed of 79 mph.
"He said he wasn’t racing," said Pace. "He said he was trying to merge."
After the pullover, Pace testified, he heard the passenger, the defendant’s girlfriend, telling someone on the phone about what happened.
"She said the police pulled us for racing," Pace told the court.
Cook’s defense attorney Donald Bellah disputed any implication of guilt from that conversation. Bellah said the girlfriend was merely conveying what the officer was contending.
"They pulled us over because they thought we were racing" was Bellah’s phrasing of the unnamed woman’s assertion.
The fact that an alleged second race car slipped away, said Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Susan Baumgartner, was a factor leading to a no-jail plea agreement.
The agreement called for all 60 jail days to be suspended on an amended charge converting the initial racing charge to general reckless driving. Judge Matthew Quatrara said that he found "facts sufficient" for a conviction but would likely dismiss that criminal charge in six months if Cook can show he has completed a 12-hour driving class and 30 hours of community service.
The next two alleged street racers, whose cases were called less than an hour later, would not get such a deal.
Both Omar Espinoza, 19, and Josue Daniel Suazo Toro, 20, were pulled over on U.S. 29 near Hollymead on the night of Feb. 21. Neither Espinoza, who lives in Charlottesville, nor Suazo Toro, who lives in Ruckersville, held a driver’s license, according to officer Dwayne Jones.
Additionally, the two men were allegedly traveling at 95 mph, a difference that led the prosecutor, she said, to a sterner outcome than Cook received.
During a hearing earlier this year, Suazo Toro came to court laughing, an attitude that prompted a scolding from the judge. At the June 28 hearing, however, he wore no smile but a pained expression and a black T-shirt showing a skeleton eating a taco. The judge called for a Spanish language interpreter to make the proceedings comprehensible to the defendants.
Unlike Cook, who likely won’t see any jail time, the later two defendants received 10 days behind bars. Both young men grimaced as bailiffs clicked handcuffs around their wrists and led them out through a nonpublic door on the right side of the courtroom.
In addition to jail, their convictions for reckless driving and driving without a license brought them $486 in fines and fees, 50 days of suspended time and a demand for a year of good behavior.
Court records indicate that both men have an alias. For Suazo Toro, it’s just a different surname spelling, Suaco Toro. For Espinoza, however, his alias is Omar Maldonado Canales. No explanation was given for either.
The last of this spring’s spate of five racing adjudications belongs to 20-year-old Mason Wayne Payne of Zion Crossroads. Like Espinoza, Suazo Toro and Eric Harrison White, a 21-year-old Palmyra man jailed for a few days in April, Payne was accused of racing on U.S. 29. But his incident occurred Dec. 7 and was closer to Charlottesville.
Despite a history of three reckless driving charges pleaded down to simple speeding in other jurisdictions and a separate improper driving conviction in their own, Albemarle prosecutors allowed Payne earlier this year to enter a deferred disposition on the racing charge with a promise of 25 hours of community service. But problems arose.
On March 4, Payne was convicted on a separate charge of reckless driving by speed in Charlottesville. Then, on April 12, he was arrested again in Charlottesville on another reckless driving charge, his sixth.
The new conviction and the pending charge appear to have reopened his racing case, which will be reviewed on Aug. 15 in Albemarle General District Court.
During the last legislative session, the Virginia General Assembly signaled an interest in finding a more effective way to slow people who repeatedly speed. The legislators decided that a judge convicting anyone of street racing or driving over 100 mph could force them to install, at their own expense, an in-vehicle speed-limiting device. The legislation followed widespread reports of repeat offenses despite the existing threats of fines, jail and license suspension. The so-called super speeder law will not take effect until next July.
On July 31, Payne received another speeding ticket. This time the allegation is going 73 in a 55 mph zone in Louisa.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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