Inset: Diego Cardoso de Oliveira, Matilde Moncado Ramos Pinto, and their 2 children (KGO). Background: The scene of the collision that left the family dead (KGO).
An 80-year-old woman in California accused of crashing into and killing a family of four as they waited at a bus stop — possibly because she mistook the gas pedal for the brake — is seeking to have the felony charges against her reduced to misdemeanors.
Mary Fong Lau is currently facing four felony counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence in the deaths of 40-year-old Diego Cardoso de Oliveira, 38-year-old Matilde Moncado Ramos Pinto, and their two young children, an infant and a toddler.
But when she appears in court on Friday, Lau”s defense attorney will formally ask the court for leniency and allow her to plead guilty to misdemeanor crimes, according to a report from local ABC affiliate KGO.
The victims on March 16, 2024, were waiting at a bus stop near the West Portal Muni station on their way to the zoo when Lau, driving her Mercedes SUV at about 65 mph, struck and killed all four family members, the station reported.
In the immediate aftermath of the crash, Lau told an eyewitness that she had attempted to hit the brakes on her vehicle, but “accidentally moved her foot onto the gas pedal,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported, citing court documents.
However, in an interview with police conducted at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, Lau reportedly said she was driving food over to her brother’s house when there was a sudden “malfunction with the vehicle which caused the vehicle to suddenly accelerate at a high rate of speed.” She further asserted to authorities that she “tried to brake and put the car into park but was unsuccessful in slowing the vehicle down.”
The victims’ family has been ardently opposed to reduced charges for Lau, with Ramos Pinto’s brother telling KGO that his sister and her family were not the only ones to die that day, saying, “part of us all died.”
“We’re vehemently against them, because no evidence has been provided that would suggest this isn’t gross negligence,” Ramos Pinto told KGO. “I would like to see this person tried and suffer, be held accountable and responsible for her actions.”
Prosecutors with the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office have also filed a motion opposing Lau’s request for reduced charges.
The victims’ families have also filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Lau, which is currently being litigated in civil court. They are represented in the matter by attorney Jim Quadra.
“If the court agrees and drops these charges, she could have acted with gross negligence in taking four lives and have just misdemeanor charges that would look to us and appear to, I think, most people would be looking at this as a basic slap on the wrist for having taken four lives,” Quadra told KGO.
In the wrongful death case, the victims’ family members have accused Lau of concealing her assets to prevent them from being included in any possible settlement or adverse judgment, local Fox affiliate KTVU reported.
