A 61-year-old man is expected to be sentenced to 16 years in state prison after pleading no contest to two felony charges for a 2021 hit-and-run crash in North Long Beach that left a man dead and a woman injured, authorities said.
Patrick Rea Mount of Long Beach pleaded no contest in Long Beach Superior Court on Monday, Oct. 20, to single counts of gross vehicular manslaughter and hit-and-run causing serious injury or death, said Pam Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. He also pleaded no contest to an enhancement of fleeing the scene.
Mount’s case was scheduled to start jury selection when he changed his plea.
On July 7, 2021, just after 3:40 a.m., Darnell Bluitt, a 54-year-old Compton resident, was helping push a disabled car along with another man with the woman steering when Mount, driving a pickup truck, hit them from behind and then continued driving, police said at the time of Mount’s arrest.
The crash happened in the westbound lanes of Artesia Boulevard east of the 710 Freeway.
Despite help from paramedics, Bluitt died at the scene.
The 43-year-old Compton woman was hospitalized, police said. The second man who was helping escaped injury.
Mount continued along in the pickup truck but was found in a nearby neighborhood and taken into custody, police said.
He was scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 31.