Ex-con, 48, arraigned on gross vehicular manslaughter
After a held-to-answer arraignment Monday, a Solano County Superior Court judge scheduled more proceedings in the felony case against a previously convicted former hitman charged with gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated in a March motorcycle crash in Fairfield that killed his female passenger.
Judge William J. Pendergast ordered Stephen Duane Chiara, 48, to return to Judge Carlos R. Gutierrez’s courtroom, on April 7 for a readiness conference, a motion to dismiss one or more charges, and a trial setting.
At the same time, Pendergast scheduled additional and virtually similar proceedings on April 14 in his courtroom in the Justice Center in Fairfield.
Chiara’s latest court date came after his Jan. 24 preliminary hearing, when Pendergast ruled there was enough evidence to hold him for the further arraignment on four counts: gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, driving under the influence, DUI causing bodily injury, and driving without a license.
During the hearing, Chiara’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Pamela Boskin, referring to testimony from California Highway Patrol Officer John Link, who responded to the dispatch call, questioned whether her client showed negligence at the time of the March 27 crash.
She further argued that there was “nothing that correlated” — namely the alleged smell of alcohol emanating from Chiara’s clothing — to her client’s blood-alcohol content, which was tested to be greater than the .08 legal limit, at .013 percent.
Boskin also raised doubts about the two blood samples taken by a phlebotomist contracted with the Solano County District Attorney’s Office, suggesting a mistake may have been made.
Additionally, she raised the possibility that another vehicle may have spooked Chiara at the time of the 8:45 p.m. crash, which occurred when the defendant was driving his Harley-Davidson motorcycle east on Interstate 80 underneath the Green Valley Road overcrossing and ran into a guard rail.