Man sentenced for causing the death of 69-year-old man in wrong-way drunk driving crash

BLACKFOOT – A 38-year-old man was sent to prison Monday after driving the wrong-way down the highway and causing the death of a man in April 2022.

District Judge Darren Simpson sentenced Tommy Ray Larkin to a minimum of three years and a maximum of 10 years in prison.

Larkin initially pleaded not guilty after being charged with felony vehicular manslaughter after a crash resulting in the death of 69-year-old Juan Berrocal-Gonzales.

RELATED | One dead after head-on crash involving wrong-way driver

In March, Larkin accepted the terms of a plea agreement where he pleaded guilty in return for the prosecution agreeing to recommend a sentence of a minimum of three years and a maximum of 10 years in prison.

Sentencing

In court, Larkin repeatedly said he was unaware he was there to be sentenced Monday and thought they were taking the case to a jury trial.

“Your honor, my son didn’t come today because he didn’t know this was sentencing,” said Larkin. “Like I said, I thought we were going to push this to a jury.”

EastIdahoNews.com confirmed that court documents show Larkin’s signature on the plea agreement filed on March 16.

During the sentencing, Larkin’s attorney Justin Oleson argued his client should get a suspended sentence and be put on probation, and if he violates probation, then have to serve the sentence in the plea agreement.

“My client does not have much of a record, your honor,” Oleson said. “He has a minor driver’s license charge in 2001, a DUI from 2005, which was some time ago, consumption of alcohol and failure to present identification from 2005, another driver’s license issue from 2005, then has a DUI charge in 2006, so that was 17 years ago. And then he has a disturbing the peace from 2007. So he does have two DUIs from 2006 and 2007 and then this case. So he hasn’t had any record for 15 years.”

Oleson also told the court that he and his client suspect the victim — who was traveling the right way on the road — was impaired in some way, which they believe may have caused the crash.

“My client was driving about 32 miles per hour at the time of the accident, so he wasn’t driving fast. The victim was approximately about 80 miles an hour,” said Oleson. “So if my client was the impaired one and the victim wasn’t, why would my client hit his brakes and the victim wouldn’t? There’s just a lot of weird things.”

Oleson then addressed a similar case from 2017, where a man drunkenly drove into a home and killed another man in Blackfoot.

RELATED | Drunken driver sent to prison after fatal Blackfoot crash

“Dillon Gibson, he was intoxicated, he ran into Mr. Hong’s house. Mr. Hong used to be the owner of a Chinese restaurant, he was a pillar in the community, made the best Chinese food around. But he was killed by Mr. Gibson,” Oleson said. “Mr. Gibson ran. He could’ve saved Mr. Hong, but anyway, Mr. Hong ended up dying. And that sentence was a three year fixed sentence, obviously with an indeterminate portion. So, we think that case is more aggravating, and I believe part of the state’s position was that it would not be fair to have my client sentenced to a longer fixed term than Mr. Gibson.”

Simpson interrupted Oleson to remind him that a different judge handled Gibson’s case, and he doesn’t have the background on that situation.

Oleson continued by implying if Larkin was sentenced to anything more than what Gibson was given, it could be because Larkin is a Native American.

“People should be treated fairly. The other case, and I understand you’re the judge, but there were significantly more aggravating factors that my client doesn’t have. I think it would look like he was being singled out for whatever reason and treated differently,” Oleson said. “The only factor I can see that’s different between the other individual and my client is that he’s a Native American. And he shouldn’t be treated any worse than anybody else for committing the same crime.”

Simpson clarified he has never included someone’s race as a factor when he has pronounced a sentence.

“I have never sentenced an individual in any case, based on race, religion, gender or any other factor like that,” Simpson said. “I take the case as an individual, and I look at the circumstances surrounding that particular case individually.”

Ryan Jolley, chief deputy prosecuting attorney for Bingham County, argued Larkin should be sentenced to a minimum of three years and a maximum of 10 years because it is similar, although not identical, to the Gibson case.

“It would take into consideration what’s previously been done in Bingham County, although again, as we’ve all stated, it was a different district judge who issued that sentence, but sentences for similar crimes should, to the extent that it’s appropriate considering all the factors, should be similar,” Jolley said. “And I don’t believe that in this case there are more aggravating factors than in that case that would justify the imposition of a higher sentence.”

Larkin then spoke to the court, saying the crash “scared him straight.”

“Reading through some of the papers, I don’t know why they didn’t do a full autopsy on the individual. But they did say ‘drugs unknown’ on there, I’d like to point that out,” Larkin said. “This has affected me very badly to where, it scared me straight to tell you the truth your honor. It scared me to where I don’t feel like I need to drink, I don’t feel like I need to do anything. It put my head back into place where depression is no longer in my system, I don’t feel depressed.”

Before pronouncing the sentence, Simpson explained if he could, he would’ve given Larkin a higher sentence, but the charge has a maximum of 10 years.

“There are two significant aggravating factors in this case. Number one, a man lost his life. Number two, you have three prior DUIs. Granted, the last few you’ve had was a significant period of time ago,” Simpson said. “When someone loses their life, and the maximum sentence is 10 years, it blows my mind a little.”

After hearing his sentence would begin immediately, Larkin and his attorney asked if he could report to the jail on Tuesday so he could have time to get his affairs in order before starting his sentence.

“If I could at least get this 24 hours, I don’t run from nothing,” said Larkin. “I haven’t drank for a year.”

Jolley was OK with the request, but Simpson denied it, stating he was worried Larkin would drink and drive again, potentially putting more people at risk.

“My problem is I have a concern of whether you might go drinking,” Simpson said.

Background of the case

On April 2, 2022, Blackfoot dispatch received a report of a two-vehicle fatality crash on northbound I-15 near mile marker 84 in Bingham County.

Six minutes before reports of a crash, dispatch received a report of a wrong-way driver on I-15 near mile marker 89. The wrong-way car was traveling southbound on I-15 in the northbound lane.

Larkin was driving the car going the wrong way in a 2016 Chevrolet Impala. The other car, an Oldsmobile Alero, was being driven by the victim, 69-year-old Berrocal-Gonzalez, who died at the crash scene.

When Fort Hall police arrived, both drivers were trapped in their seats. Because Larkin had a pulse, he was extricated first and taken to Portneuf Medical Center.

Larkin told the officers he had been drinking and was driving to Pocatello to go to a bar. According to police, Larkin was “in a considerable amount of discomfort due to his injuries sustained from the crash.”

Court documents say Larkin only remembered the moments after the crash and said he was coming from “downtown.”

When asked how much he had to drink, Larkin responded, “two tall boys” but later said he drank more, but couldn’t remember how much.

Larkin provided a breath sample but initially couldn’t take a deep enough breath due to his injuries, making the results insufficient. He later tried again, and officers could see his blood-alcohol level (BAC) was at a .123. The legal BAC level is .08.

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