Gangster faces up to 60 years to life for fatal crash

San Jose residents Carmen Zavala and Cristina De Leon Castro were on their way to work when their car was broadsided

SAN JOSE >> A gang member with a history of endangering the public while fleeing police is finally facing what prosecutors say is his comeuppance.

Taliban gang member Danny Darnel Coleman, 28, could be sentenced later this year to 60 years to life in prison for killing two women he plowed into while driving up to 75 mph and through four red lights on North First Street to evade the CHP.

But his defense attorney plans to argue later this year that Superior Court Judge Vanessa A. Zecher should not take into consideration a previous strike offense on his record, effectively reducing the sentence to 30 years to life.

The collision on North First Street and Skyport Drive in the early morning hours of Labor Day 2013 killed San Jose residents Carmen Zavala, 63, and Cristina De Leon Castro, 62. Both were beloved members of extended families on their way to work in service jobs at San Jose’s airport when their Toyota Yaris was broadsided by Coleman’s silver Mercedes sedan. The CHP had stopped pursuing Coleman for safety prior to the crash, according to court documents.

After a monthlong trial, a Santa Clara County jury last week took less than four hours to convict Coleman of four felonies — two counts of seconddegree murder, one count of being a felon in possession of a gun and one count of reckless driving while evading police. Jurors were not told of his affiliation with the Taliban, East Palo Alto’s most violent street gang, or of the decadeslong punishment he could face.

Prosecutor Oanh Tran had argued that Coleman was guilty of second-degree murder because he acted with conscious disregard for human life. She said that he knew even more than the average person about the risks of speeding because he had previously hit a parked car at 100 mph while attempting to evade police. Fortunately, that vehicle was unoccupied.

“He did not care who he would kill to get away,” Tran wrote in a court document that recounted Coleman’s pattern of fleeing law enforcement on foot and in a car. “The public is greatly safer with him off the street.”

But defense attorney Lara Wallman tried to persuade the jury that Coleman, who was 24 at the time, failed to exercise reasonable caution, but hadn’t acted with complete indifference to human life. If jurors had agreed, they could have found him guilty of involuntary manslaughter, and Coleman would now be facing up to 12 years and eight months in prison, Wallman said.

“Although we respect the jury’s verdict, we believed that Danny’s conduct amounted to manslaughter as opposed to murder,” Wallman said. “Our thoughts continue to go out to the families involved and Danny continues to be remorseful for his actions.”

At the time of fatal crash, Coleman had been on parole for about only two months after serving a seven-year sentence in state prison for a strike crime. In the incident, he had fled Menlo Park police and run into an occupied apartment while equipped with a concealed .45-caliber semi-automatic handgun with an extended magazine and a bullet in the chamber, endangering residents and the

“He did not care who he would kill to get away. The public is greatly safer with him off the street.” tkaplan@bayareanewsgroup.com — Prosecutor Oanh Tran, in a written statement

officer, according to court documents filed by the prosecution.

In a separate incident, he was charged with attempted robbery, attempted murder and gang enhancements. But he was released from jail because the victims and witnesses were too scared to testify, the court documents said.