Richard David Lavalle, a 64-year-old Long Beach man, who killed Noel Bascon, a 12-year-old boy in a DUI collision in Costa Mesa a was sentenced on Friday, Sept. 5, to 30 years to life in prison.
Lavalle was convicted of second-degree murder by an Orange County Superior Court jury earlier this year for the Dec. 6, 2020, fatal collision, which happened at Junipero and Arlington Drives.
Lavalle got a higher sentence because of his lengthy criminal history, which includes a federal bank robbery conviction in 2009 and a robbery conviction in 2018. Lavalle was also convicted of a previous DUI in San Diego County Superior Court. At that time he was warned that if his next DUI killed someone, he could end up being charged with murder.,
Glen Bascon, the boy’s father, said he and his son were out riding their bikes until about 5 p.m. that day but they opted to return home when they realized it was getting too dark. Bascon said he “triple checked” his son’s reflectors and lights on his bike before they left and kept to the sidewalk when they could because it was safer, according to court testimony.
Bascon told the jury that he was jumping up and down and waving his arms while shouting to get the attention of a driver in a U-Haul pickup truck who was barreling down on his son at Junipero and Arlington Drives in Costa Mesa before it slammed into the boy and killed him. Bascon estimated Lavalle was going between 40 to 50 mph.
Bascon testified that Lavalle, who was on parole at the time, got out of the truck after the collision and he apparently “didn’t realize what he hit.”
Bascon’s son was thrown about 120 feet by the collision. Blood was streaming from the boy’s mouth and he was not breathing.
A nurse and a Costa Mesa police officer tried to revive the victim by doing CPR but they were unable to revive him.
The victim’s mother, Eleanor Bascon, called her son Noel her early Christmas present. He was a 7th grader with a contagious smile who loved gummy candy and going to the beach, according to NBC News. Eleanor and her daughter would have been on the bike ride too, but they were at home wrapping Christmas presents.
Senior O.C. Deputy District Attorney Casey Cunningham said that investigators found drugs in the pickup truck. A blood test done at about 11:05 p.m. that evening found Lavalle had 115 nanograms of methamphetamine in his system.
Lavalle was previoulsy convicted in 2013 of driving under the influence in San Diego County, triggering an upgraded charge in this case from manslaughter to murder.
Jennifer Ryan, of the Orange County Public Defender’s Office, Lavalle’s defense attorney, told the jurors that her client “felt awful” when the collision occurred.
Lavalle’s wife, who was in the passenger’s seat of the truck, told the police that the methamphetamine found in the vehicle belonged to her, according to Ryan.
Lavalle’s attorney, Senior Deputy Public Defender Jennifer Ryan, told Orange County Superior Court Judge Michael J. Cassidy that Lavalle was extremely remorseful about the “horrible accident” and that he had offered his condolences to the boy’s family.
Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Casey Cunningham told the jurors in closing arguments that Lavalle failed a field sobriety test, showing them how he was unable to stand on one leg.
Ryan had an explanation for that. She said that Lavalle told the police officers that he had been working the whole day up on a ladder and had a bad back and hip to explain some of his difficulty standing on one leg and balancing as well as other field sobriety tests.
Ryan also told the jurors that the amount of methamphetamine found in Lavalle’s blood was too low to be quantified by the Orange County Crime Lab.
Ryan’s efforts were for naught as her client was convicted.
Lavalle is a U.S. Marine Corp veteran who has received treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, according to court filings.
The boy’s mother told the judge that her son’s death had “broken” their family, leaving them “sentenced to a life without our son.”
“This whole case was tragic,” Judge Cassidy said. “There were a lot of bad circumstances. But I can’t get beyond the fact his conduct caused the death of this young man, which will affect his family for the rest of their lives.”