A Piedmont wealth manager left his wife and a dying man at scene of hit-and-run. Now he wants his license back

San Francisco Chronicle​

3 days ago

A Piedmont wealth manager convicted of a deadly hit-and-run is fighting to get his driver's license reinstated.
Attorneys for Timothy Hamano say the 68-year-old man has already served a mandatory three-year period without his driving privileges, and should be allowed to resume a normal life. But their request drew fervent resistance from family members of Gregory Turnage, the man Hamano struck and killed on Mother's Day in 2021.
It's the latest chapter in an unusually complicated case that's produced two starkly different narratives. Hamano's lawyers say their client's life was upended by a tragic accident that he regrets every day. Turnage's bereaved relatives, by contrast, see Hamano as an avatar of wealth and power, maneuvering through a justice system where money buys better outcomes. Losing his ability to drive was the only 'real punishment' Hamano ever received, wrote Turnage's partner, Angie Brey, in a searing July letter to the Alameda County court.
'If you take a life with your car, I don't think you should get your license back,' Brey told the Chronicle. 'That's where I stand.'
The crash occurred on May 9, 2021, when police said Hamano plowed his white Lexus into a parked SUV on leafy Park Boulevard in Oakland. He struck Turnage, who was walking on the sidewalk, with a force strong enough to throw the 41-year-old man over the hood of the Lexus and then back onto the pavement. As Turnage lay bleeding, witnesses said, Hamano opened his door and walked around the crumpled front bumper, looking down at the gravely injured man.
He then fled on foot, leaving Turnage behind, as well as his wife, who sat in the front passenger seat of the Lexus behind a deployed airbag. Hamano turned himself in the next day after Oakland police issued a warrant for his arrest. Although restaurant receipts obtained by police indicate that he had been drinking prior to the crash, prosecutors lacked sufficient evidence to charge him with driving while intoxicated.
Last year Hamano pled no contest to felony vehicular manslaughter and fleeing the scene of an accident, receiving a sentence of six years' home detention with an ankle monitor. Under California law, defendants typically serve half the time to which they are sentenced, so Hamano spent three years confined to his house in Piedmont. The conditions of his $125,000 bail barred him from driving or drinking alcohol, but owing to a clerical error, court staff failed to report his conviction to the Department of Motor Vehicles. The error was first reported by Cal Matters.
Out of the hundreds of mandatory DMV notifications that Alameda County court has sent since 2019, Hamano's was one of two that slipped, according to court spokesperson Paul Rosynsky. When court officials learned of the mistake, Rosynsky said, they 'immediately rectified the situation,' creating a new quandary.
By then Hamano had successfully re-applied for his license, only to have the DMV revoke it on May 28. His attorney, Colin Cooper, subsequently filed a motion for the court to 'set aside' the DMV's order. In a recent interview, Cooper emphasized that this penalty seemed to come out of nowhere: The case has long been resolved, he noted, and months have passed since Hamano settled a wrongful death lawsuit filed on behalf of Turnage and Brey's son, Miles.
'If someone commits this crime (of vehicular manslaughter) and admits to it, then part of the punishment, by statute, is that you can't drive for three years,' Cooper said. 'I think that's appropriate. And I think that occurred here. We abided by the tenor of the law.'
But Brey maintains that Hamano poses a threat to public safety, and contends that he shouldn't be allowed behind the wheel. In her letter to the court, she cited a subsequent collision in Oakland that Hamano reported to his insurance carrier in May. Cooper said his client was hit by another car and the other driver was at fault.