It's no surprise even the prosecutors thought it was ridiculous. Unfortunately they didn't seem to care that their only evidence was a joke.
[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/millionaire-ehsa...
Certainly you're right about the difference money makes.
However (we have an international readership on HN) it's important to point out that this happened in two different states. In the USA these cases are prosecuted in state or local courts.
It's beyond crazy how different the procedures and consequences are in different states.
The son of multimillionaire entrepreneur James Khuri killed a woman while speedracing his Lamborghini through Los Angeles. He was sentenced to serve a pathetic seven to nine months not in prison but in a youth camp and home detention.
On the other hand, Cameron Herrin killed a mother and her baby while speedracing his Mustang through the streets of Tampa—he was sentenced to twenty-four years in prison.
They're the same age. They're both rich. They're both white boys. They were both speedracing. And yet their sentences could not be more different. Frankly, it sounds like California is just soft-on-crime when it comes to vehicular offenses.
In the case of the Cuban truck driver, he was railroaded by local sentencing laws that forced the judge to sentence him to consecutive terms for each individual victim. Even the prosecutor in that case is now filing motions to get his sentence reduced.
