An elderly and reportedly wealthy woman who killed a family of four while speeding the wrong way down a residential San Francisco street will likely face no prison time, a judge handling the case indicated Friday.
Mary Fong Lau, 80, changed her plea Friday afternoon from not guilty to no contest to four felony counts of gross vehicular manslaughter.
Following the plea, San Francisco Super Court Judge Bruce Chan, while saying the loss of life was “incomprehensible,” indicated he was unlikely to impose a prison sentence because the defendant was remorseful and giving her time would be “sentencing her to die within the state prison system.”
According to the San Francisco Chronicle:
Prosecutors said she crashed into a West Portal bus stop in March 2024, killing a mother, father and their two young children as they waited for transportation to the San Francisco Zoo. A no-contest plea indicates that while a criminal defendant does not admit guilt, they waive their right to a trial and allow the court to treat them as if they were guilty for the purposes of sentencing.
Diego Cardoso de Oliveira, 40, and his 1-year-old son, Joaquim Ramos Pinto de Oliveira, were killed immediately after Lau’s Mercedes sports utility vehicle smashed into the transit shelter in front of the West Portal Branch Library at speeds that investigators said topped 70 mph. Matilde Moncada Ramos Pinto, 38, and 3-month-old Cauê Ramos Pinto de Oliveira were hospitalized with serious injuries and died days later.
The Superior Court judge said his duty was to balance the deaths with the other factors of the case, including “Lau’s age, her lack of criminal history and her remorse, as well as the fact that her own husband had died in a car accident early on in their marriage,” the newspaper reported.
He pointed out that in the hospital following the accident, Lau told medical staff she wished she could trade places with the family.
“Mrs. Lau is going to spend the rest of her days living with the knowledge of the harm she has caused to others,” Judge Chan said.
The judge said his sentence will likely be two to three years of probation. She will also be prohibited from driving.
“It feels like we have no rights,” Cardoso de Oliveira’s sister, Denise Oliveira, told the Court, according to the Daily Mail. “I feel deeply disrespected by this process. It doesn’t feel like this is justice.”
The surviving parents of the victims have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Lau. Survivors of the slain family accused Lau of transferring and selling millions of dollars of assets to other parties to avoid potential penalties and financial damages in the civil case.
“This new lawsuit exposes an intentional scheme by Ms. Lau to place assets beyond the reach of grieving families seeking justice,” plaintiffs’ attorney Rebecca Coll said in a statement when the suit was filed. “It shows an unwillingness by Ms. Lau to take accountability for her actions.”
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more
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