NORWALK (CNS) – A Diamond Bar man who was charged last year with vehicular manslaughter and other counts for allegedly ramming his car into a group of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department recruits on a training run in the Whittier area, fatally injuring one of them, was indicted on the same charges, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Nicholas Joseph Gutierrez, 23, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to the charges included in the new indictment. He is scheduled to appear in a Norwalk courtroom Feb. 9 for a pretrial hearing, according to the District Attorney’s Office. He remains free on $500,000 bail.
Gutierrez was originally charged in November with one felony count of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and nine felony counts of reckless driving causing great bodily injury stemming from the Nov. 16, 2022, crash, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. He had not yet been arraigned on those charges.
The indictment unsealed Tuesday supersedes the original criminal case. The new indictment charges Gutierrez with vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and nine counts of reckless driving on a highway causing a specified injury, along with a misdemeanor count of vehicular manslaughter with ordinary negligence.