A graduate student from China enrolled at Pepperdine University, Yijing Chen has begun a quest for justice for her late mother.
On a quiet Sunday night in Calabasas, Yijing Chen screamed for help as her mother lay dying on Las Virgenes Road.
A pickup truck had slammed into Chen and her mom as they walked in the crosswalk at the 101 Freeway ramp. The vehicle ran over Chen’s mother, who was visiting her daughter at Pepperdine University. The impact fractured Chen’s left leg, which felt like it was dangling from her body as she crawled in the street.
Chen can’t shake what happened next: The driver left the pickup, grabbed her mother’s arms and dragged 53-year-old Hongfen Shen toward the curb, according to the California Highway Patrol’s report.
The driver returned to the truck, reversed and parked nearby along Las Virgenes Road, witnesses told the CHP.
After police arrived, she denied that she had struck the women, saying she came upon the scene while driving to the grocery store, the CHP records said.
After a yearlong investigation, the CHP identified the driver as Nicole Herschel and recommended serious charges: Felony hit-and-run as well as misdemeanor counts of vehicular manslaughter and tampering with evidence.
But the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office filed only a misdemeanor count of vehicular manslaughter, a charge that carries a maximum penalty of a year in County Jail. Herschel, 36, pleaded not guilty to the charge.
The decision by prosecutors has left Chen outraged and demanding action.
“I cannot just sit and wait,” Chen said. “She pretended to be innocent. She lied to the police…. So why is this not a crime?”
She persuaded Alan Jackson, a former prosecutor who sent music producer Phil Spector to prison, to help her lobby the district attorney’s office for more serious charges. Amanda Carter, an attorney in Jackson’s firm, said in a statement that the case called for felony charges of both manslaughter and hit-and-run.
Legal experts, however, say this is a tough call. The CHP said Herschel was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol, nor was she using her cellphone — factors that could warrant more severe charges.
The crash was deemed an accident partly caused by Herschel’s “diverting her attention to her dog” in the car, investigators said.
The legal experts said that California’s felony hit-and-run law was structured for an all-too-common scenario: A driver strikes a person or another car and then flees. The statute generally requires a driver to remain at the scene of a crash, identify herself, and give “reasonable assistance” to those injured.
Herschel remained at the scene. In their recommendation to prosecutors, investigators said she tried “to conceal her involvement” by moving the pickup truck.
Michael Aguirre, a former federal prosecutor and San Diego city attorney, said he did not think a felony hit-and-run applied, adding that a skilled defense attorney could show reasonable doubt among a jury to win an acquittal.
