Santa Cruz County District Attorney Jeffrey Rosell announced today/Tuesday that Alejandro Rocha Fernandez has been sentenced to 20 years in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated causing the death of 55-year-old Diana Crotty.
On June 5, 2019, Fernandez, who had been drinking at a downtown Santa Cruz bar and had a blood alcohol level approaching three times the legal limit, recklessly sped into an alleyway, striking and killing the victim. Following the crash, Fernandez fled the scene on foot. He was located and arrested by Santa Cruz police officers.
At the time of the offense, Fernandez was on two grants of probation for separate driving while impaired (DUI) offenses occurring in 2016 and 2018.