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Marine pleads not guilty in fatal DUI crash

VISTA, Calif. — A 21-year-old Camp Pendleton Marine pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges of drunken driving in a crash early New Year’s Day that killed a local man whose vehicle had gotten stuck in the mud along a curvy road.

Lance Cpl. Quintin Garza, 21, appeared in a San Diego County Superior Court courtroom as four members of his family who had traveled from Texas watched his arraignment on charges of gross vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence. Their presence did not convince Judge Marshall Hockett to reduce bail, which had been set at $200,000, and the judge instead granted the prosecutor’s request to hike it to $350,000.

Garza remained in the Vista jail. He is scheduled to appear in court next on Feb. 4.

His defense attorney, James W. Wessel of Escondido, Calif., said that Garza has served in the Marine Corps for almost four years and has deployed overseas, although he has not completed any combat tours in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Garza has “an impeccable record” in the military and has “no prior record of any kind,” Wessel said outside the courtroom. “He wanted to serve his country.”

According to the California Highway Patrol, Garza was alone in his vehicle when it went off the road in a semi-rural stretch of El Camino Real that includes an “S” curve where the posted speed limit is 15 mph.

New Year’s Eve was marked by heavy fog and light drizzle.

Garza’s attorney would not say why Garza was driving on El Camino Real — the road generally parallels Interstate 5 to the west and winds through the edge of the ritzy millionaire community of Rancho Santa Fe — or what his plans were for New Year’s Eve.

“I don’t think that we’ll know what happened,” Wessel said.

“There was a curve in the road, and it was foggy,” he said, adding that Garza was unconscious when officers arrived at the scene about 4:10 a.m. A passerby had called 911.

CHP officers found Garza in the passenger seat of the victim’s vehicle, a GMC sport utility vehicle that had its top nearly sheared off, said Officer Mark Latulippe, a CHP spokesman.

The SUV had gotten stuck in the mud off the road, and the driver was standing outside the vehicle when he was struck, Latulippe said. Police suspect that Garza’s car, a Dodge Caliber, struck the SUV and went airborne before landing in the nearby swamp.

The SUV’s driver, Gaudencio Reyes-Quintana, 29, was pronounced dead at the scene. CHP officers at the scene suspected that both Garza and Reyes-Guaintana were driving under the influence, although toxicology analyses were pending, the spokesman said.

Garza, who had slight injuries, was arrested and booked into the local jail.