Driver pleads not guilty in tour bus crash
He’s charged with 8 felony vehicular manslaughter counts for the deadly 2013 wreck near Yucaipa.
The driver of a tour bus that careened down a narrow mountain roadway near Yucaipa before crashing, killing eight people, pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges of vehicular manslaughter.
Norberto Bravo Perez, 55, was arrested Wednesday after prosecutors charged him with eight felony counts of vehicular manslaughter, according to the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office.
If convicted of all charges, he faces up to 15 years in prison, prosecutors said.
Perez was driving the tour bus Feb. 3, 2013, on California 38 from Big Bear Lake to Tijuana when it struck a sedan, smashed into a pickup and overturned.
Some of the 38 passengers were tossed out of the bus, and others were trapped inside. In addition to those killed, more than 30 were injured in the collision.
According to the complaint filed Nov. 3 in San Bernardino County Superior Court, Perez was “driving a vehicle in the commission of a lawful act which might have produced death, in an unlawful manner, and with gross negligence.”
Prosecutors offered scant details of what evidence supported the charges filed against Perez, but in a statement, Dist. Atty. Mike Ramos cited the investigations by the California Highway Patrol and the National Transportation Safety Board as pinpointing “what occurred that horrible night.”
Investigators with the CHP determined that “100% of the brakes” on the motor coach were defective in some way, according to a report by the NTSB.
The NTSB’s inquiry also found that the bus operator, Scapadas Magicas, was scheduled for a yearly inspection shortly before the crash, but that the bus involved in the collision was not presented for inspection.
Public records show that the bus operator had a poor safety record in the years leading up to the crash and was placed on a federal watch list that flagged its buses for increased roadside inspections.
Perez was arrested at the San Ysidro Port of Entry and was being housed in a San Bernardino County jail, records show.
After Perez entered his plea Thursday, his bail was raised to $1 million, according to jail records. An attorney for Perez could not be reached for comment.