The older driver in a horrific San Francisco car crash that left an entire family dead in 2024 was sentenced Friday to two years of probation and 200 hours of community service after she pleaded no contest.
The sentence for the driver, Mary Fong Lau, now 80, was slightly harsher than the one without community service that the judge had first proposed in February. But Ms. Lau will still avoid prison time and home detention, and the judge said she could reapply for her driver’s license in three years.
The victims’ relatives, friends and many residents in San Francisco had been outraged for weeks at a proposed punishment they felt was too lenient in a city where traffic injuries and deaths have become too common. They said it would send other drivers the wrong message: that nothing much would happen if they hit and kill people.
The judge, Bruce Chan of San Francisco Superior Court, said that Ms. Lau’s age, lack of a criminal record and expressions of remorse shortly after the tragedy factored into his decision. He said the high-profile case against her and her poor health could make her a target of other inmates, and that the California prison system lacked the health care and mental health support she would need.
Ms. Lau will owe the family financial restitution. The amount is still being decided but will range from $67,000 to nearly $300,000. After that is settled, the sentence will be made official next month.
On March 16, 2024, Diego Cardoso de Oliveira, 40, and his wife, Matilde Ramos Pinto, 38, were celebrating their fourth wedding anniversary. They waited at a bus stop outside the public library in the city’s West Portal neighborhood, planning to take their boys, Joaquim, 20 months, and Cauê, 3 months, to the San Francisco Zoo.
Ms. Lau, then 78, was driving her white Mercedes S.U.V. and had reached speeds as high as 75 miles per hour, three times the posted limit. At 12:12 p.m., her vehicle jumped the sidewalk and obliterated the bus stop, sending the father and toddler flying and trapping the mother and baby in the wreckage.
The father and toddler died at the scene, and the mother died soon after in the hospital. The baby was the last to die after his grandmothers made the decision to pull him from life support. Family members noted that Friday was the second anniversary of Cauê’s death.
The hearing was an emotional one, with a string of relatives and friends of the family addressing the judge and demanding more acknowledgment of their pain. Several said they wanted to hear Ms. Lau express remorse.
Until then, in two years of hearings, she had not looked them in the eye or addressed them, they said. For hours on Friday, she bowed her head, looking at her lap and listening to an interpreter translate the English proceedings into Cantonese.
But then she appeared to ask for a word with her lawyer, Seth Morris, who huddled with her, whispering. He told the judge that he had advised his client against speaking because her words could be used against her in a separate civil case.
Nonetheless, Ms. Lau had something to say.
The frail woman rose haltingly and turned to the family’s friends and relatives.
“I want to say to your family, ‘Sorry,’” Ms. Lau said in English.
Then, she bowed to the family three times, saying “Sorry” each time. Then, she sat. Many in the courtroom cried.
The victims’ relatives were frustrated after the crash when Ms. Lau moved several pieces of property out of her trust and into family members’ names, seeing that as a sign she lacked remorse. Ms. Lau took them back when the lawyer for the relatives called out that maneuver in a civil suit.
Mr. Morris said in an interview that Ms. Lau did not know how her car had sped so fast and why she could not control it. She told a bystander after the crash that she had confused the gas and brake pedals.
She is depressed and wishes she could trade places with the family she killed, Mr. Morris added.
Scores of people gathered Thursday evening outside the West Portal library to remember the family who died and to call for justice. Extended family members were there, as were police officers, firefighters, the chief investigator in the case and advocates for pedestrian safety.
Mr. Cardoso de Oliveira and Ms. Ramos Pinto loved music, and the vigil turned into a singalong that included “Stand By Me” and “All You Need is Love.” The local nonprofit Livable City was raising money to build a memorial outside the library, with one pillar for each family member next to the words, “Together forever, your deep love for each other will be your lasting legacy,” in Portuguese.
Maria Ana Moncara, 73, the mother of Ms. Ramos Pinto, flew to San Francisco from Portugal for the hearing and wore four black ribbons on her jacket, one for each family member she lost.
“We loved them,” she said in English. “They were wonderful and happy, so happy.”
“I am not going to be the same person again, ever,” she added. “It’s impossible.”
Heather Knight is a reporter in San Francisco, leading The Times’s coverage of the Bay Area and Northern California.
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