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Daughter Of LAPD Sergeant Who Killed Cyclist Then Tried To Cover It Up Will Likely Serve Two Years In Prison
The daughter of an LAPD sergeant charged with not only fatally hitting a bicyclist with her car and then leaving the scene, but also reporting that car stolen after the incident, pleaded no contest to all charges yesterday. She is expected to be sentenced to two years in September. Vanessa Marie Yanez, 23, struck Jesse Dotson, Jr., 60, in Gardena on June 26, 2013 at around 9:50 p.m. She then kept driving, met a friend at a club in Huntington Park, and reported her car stolen. However, a Huntington Park police officer called Gardena police after seeing a report on the hit and run, and they were able to connect the dots, finding Yanez's car not far from the club, the Daily Breeze reports.
Dotson worked as a postal officer and was on his way to work when he was hit. Yanez left him lying in the street. He was taken to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, but died from his injuries—which included severe head trauma—three days later.
The charges she pleaded no contest to were leaving the scene of an accident, perjury and misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter. A release from the L.A. County District Attorney's office says she is expected to be sentenced to two years in prison on September 25, though she was at one point facing six.
Yanez's father, Sgt. Arturo Yanez, was not determined to have known about the crash or to have helped his daughter with her attempted coverup.
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One of Dotson's six children, Jonathan Dotson, told the Daily Breeze that he holds no grudges against Yanez or her family, does not believe she hit his father on purpose and will not be bothered by her short sentence.
"The whole thing is, if they would have given her the death penalty and killed her tomorrow, that wouldn't have brought my father back," he said.
He also said that it would have all been less painful, however, if Yanez had shown more remorse.
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