The California Supreme Court refused Wednesday to hear the case of a young man sentenced to four years in county jail for an August 2008 crash in Eagle Rock that killed four people, including a pregnant woman and her teenage sister and brother.
The state's highest court denied a defense petition seeking review of the case against Rostislav Shnayder.
In April, a three-justice panel from California's 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the defense's contention that Los Angeles Superior Court Judge
William R. Pounders abused his discretion by imposing the maximum term on
Shnayder.
"The factors cited by the trial court here are supported by the record and justify the sentence choice," the panel wrote in its April 3 ruling, which notes that the judge "credited appellant for not fleeing the scene of the collision'' on west-bound Colorado Boulevard, near the .
Shnayder was convicted in August 2010 of four counts of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter with ordinary negligence.
Jurors acquitted Shnayder—who was 19 years old at the time of the crash—of
the more serious felony charges of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence.
Shnayder was speeding on Colorado Boulevard on Aug. 27, 2008, when he
slammed on his brakes and lost control of the vehicle, which veered into the
lane containing a car driven by Cristyn Cordova, Deputy District Attorney
Candice Reiter told jurors.
Cordova lost control of her sedan, which slammed into a tree, and the
collision nearly sliced the 2007 Nissan Maxima in half, according to the
prosecutor in the case.
Killed in the crash were Cordova, who was eight months pregnant;
Cordova's younger sister, Toni Marie, 16; her 15-year-old brother, Andrew, and
19-year-old family friend Jason Gomez-Hernandez.
Shnayder's attorney, Jilbert Tahmazian, countered that his client "was
not a substantial factor in causing this collision.''
Shnayder, who was free on bail during the trial, was taken into custody
immediately after the sentence was imposed in September 2010. Now 23 years old, Shnayder remains jailed, according to the Los Angeles County
Sheriff's Department's Inmate Information Center website.
