Alleged Wrong Way Driver In Acton Due Back In Court

Posted by: Perry Smith in Santa Clarita News September 26, 2013 - 2:34 pm 0 1,334 Views

A Burbank man charged with murder in a Highway 14 crash that killed two people will be back in court next week.

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Bradford Pate, 38, missed his court date for a preliminary hearing Wednesday,

On June 25, Los Angeles County prosecutors charged Bradford E. Pate, 38, of Burbank, with two counts of murder and gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and DUI causing injury.

Pate missed a pair of early hearings due to injuries he sustained in the crash, said Jane Robison, spokeswoman for the county’s District Attorney’s Office.

Pate pleaded not guilty at his initial arraignment Aug. 8.

At a preliminary hearing, the evidence is presented against a defendant and a judge decides whether there is enough evidence to warrant a trial.

Pate allegedly drove a 2006 Toyota Tundra south in northbound lanes, near Escondido Canyon Road, at 3:28 a.m. in June when he collided with a 2006 Chrysler 300, which swerved and struck a rideshare van.

He initially was arrested for DUI causing injury. He also sustained major injuries after his truck flipped and was sent to Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia.

The Rev. Manard Giles, a 77-year-old Quartz Hill minister, who drove the 2006 Chrysler 300 died on scene in Saturday’s collision.

Mattie Lee Ferguson, a 60-year-old Lancaster woman who was a passenger in Giles’s car, succumbed to her injuries Monday night at Providence Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills.

Lennard A. Wilds, 47, of Lancaster, another passenger in Giles’s vehicle, was trapped in the car until rescuers could later free him. He sustained critical injuries, and was airlifted to Henry Mayo.

Juan M. Zamora, 43, of Lancaster, drove the rideshare van, a 2013 Ford Econoline Minor. Zamora was transporting nine passengers to an aerospace work site in Palmdale, likely Plant 42.

Two passengers in the van sustained minor injuries. Efren Arrieta, 27, of Lancaster, and Patrick W. Glesby, 42, of Quartz Hill, was wounded with a cut to left arm.

The other passengers: David G. Moreno, 47, Palmdale; Jose Nario, 22, Palmdale; Javier Cobio, 41, Palmdale; Javier Arrieta, 25, Lancaster; and Alfonso Ramirez, 40, Palmdale were not injured.

Traffic on Saturday was tied up until 7:30 a.m.

The crash occurred less than a week after another wrong-way driver, believed to be on drugs, caused a multi-car pileup that left three people with life-threatening injuries.

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