Former Pepperdine law student guilty of 2nd-degree murder for fatal crash
A former third-year Pepperdine University law student has been found guilty of second-degree murder for a fatal car crash that occurred on Aug. 3, 2017.
The Orange County Dist. Attorney says 34-year-old Richard Lindwall III had a blood-alcohol level four times the legal limit when he got into a head-on collision with 41-year-old Carlos Mendez, who died as a result of his injuries.
On the evening of the fatal accident, Lindwall was driving to his Yorba Linda home at more than 90 miles per hour on La Palma Avenue when he sped around a curve and crashed into Mendez’s vehicle.
The force of the crash caused the victim’s car to come off its front axle, and detach from the engine, officials say.
Lindwall’s vehicle came to a stop a few hundred feet from where the initial impact occurred. First responders said they found broken beer bottles on the floor of Lindwall’s car. Blood tests revealed that the third-year law student also had two types of prescription medication in his system, along with an elevated blood-alcohol level.
In 2011, Lindwall was involved in a serious crash in Arizona. Officials say he was driving drunk, and was traveling more than 80 miles per hour when he lost control of the vehicle and struck a boulder.
His girlfriend was a passenger in his car in the 2011 crash and suffered serious injuries to her head and body. Lindwall served a year in prison for the collision.
Lindwall had to disclose his conviction in Arizona as part of the Pepperdine law school entry requirements. He was accepted and was in his final year of law school when he killed Mendez.
“A law student who used his prior drinking and driving as part of his application to get accepted into law school is now a convicted murder,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer. “This was a tragedy that never had to happen and instead of practicing law Richard Lindwall will be spending years behind bars because he refused to learn his lesson that drinking and driving is dangerous.”
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