The photos shown to a Placer County jury on Tuesday weren’t terribly dramatic — a red Cadillac with damage on its rear passenger side and a motorcycle on the ground — but they symbolized a vehicle crash that cost a retired CHP officer his life and put a leading Sacramento area businessman in an uncomfortable spotlight.
The images were displayed in court as opening statements began Tuesday in a wrongful death case against developer and minority Sacramento Kings owner Phil Oates. The businessman, 75, sat in the front row of the courtroom in Auburn’s historic Maple Street courthouse, wearing a gray suit and black headphones to amplify the statements and testimony.
Oates was at the wheel of the Cadillac on a sunny early evening in 2024, heading east on Douglas Boulevard in Granite Bay as Patrick Mulderrig, on the motorcycle, drove west. Oates turned left in front of Mulderrig toward Kingsgate Drive, and the motorcycle slammed into the Cadillac, propelling Mulderrig into the air and leading to his death, both sides agreed.
The businessman and host of the annual Phil Oates Celebrity Golf Tournament had not been drinking, and was not ticketed in connection with crash, a police report showed. A police officer at the scene said he cooperated and had not been grossly negligent. Prosecutors declined to file charges…