Man found guilty in crash that killed 2 immigrants

UNION-TRIBUNE

7:04 a.m. April 23, 2008

EAST COUNTY COURTS: A Mexican man was convicted yesterday of causing a head-on collision that killed two undocumented immigrants he was smuggling into rural East County.

Daniel Cardiola López, 36, was found guilty by an El Cajon Superior Court jury of two counts of murder, two counts of vehicular homicide with gross negligence causing great bodily harm and assault with a deadly weapon in connection with the collision on county Route S2 near Ocotillo Wells about 4 p.m. June 26, 2007.
Judge Herbert J. Exarhos set a June 6 hearing, at which López could be sentenced to prison for life.

López, driving a Dodge Dakota truck with undocumented immigrants in the back, was fleeing Border Patrol agents when he slammed head-on into a 2007 Toyota Corolla driven by Juan Herrerra of Valley Center with his wife in the passenger seat, Deputy District Attorney Leonard Trinh said in the weeklong trial. Two passengers in López's truck were killed, and the five others were seriously injured, as were Herrerra and his wife, Trinh said.

Deputy Public Defender Dawn Beebee told the jury the crash was caused by spike strips Border Patrol agents placed in the roadway in an effort to stop López. She said López lost control of his truck when one or more tires went flat after he drove over the spikes. –R.H.

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