A Pico Rivera man who killed his friend and girlfriend in a 124-mile-per-hour crash in Ventura County has been sentenced to more than five years in prison, officials said this week.
Leonardo Rodriguez, 21, was driving a black Honda Accord south on U.S. 101 near Thousand Oaks early on the morning of Oct. 31, 2024, when he tried to pass a car that was in the slow lane using the shoulder, the Ventura County district attorney’s office said Friday in a statement.
Reaching a top speed of 124 mph, Rodriguez crashed into a tractor-trailer parked in the shoulder, the office said. The impact threw his girlfriend, Serenity Rizkalla, and a friend, Michael Estrella, from the car. Both passengers were pronounced dead at the scene.
Rodriguez and another friend who was in the car suffered minor injuries.
“This tragedy was preventable, and [the victims’] families will forever live with the consequences,” Deputy Dist. Atty. George Brietigam said in a statement. “We hope today’s sentence provides their loved ones with some measure of closure.”
Rodriguez pleaded guilty to two counts of gross vehicular manslaughter in June.
