A driver who lost control of his truck and crashed into an LAPD patrol car, killing a well-liked veteran officer, pleaded no contest to gross vehicular manslaughter on Wednesday, reports KTLA.
Robert Maldonado’s plea under an agreement with prosecutors makes him eligible to have a felony crime reduced to a misdemeanor, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
Maldonado, 48, was charged in the March 7, 2014, crash that killed 40-year-old Officer Nicholas Lee of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Hollywood Division. Another officer in the car was injured.
Maldonado was driving his dump truck down steep and curving Loma Vista Drive in Beverly Hills when the brakes failed.
Maldonado, who owned the dump truck company, had not properly maintained and inspected the vehicle as required by law, a California Highway Patrol investigation found.
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