IRVINE, CA — A south Orange County attorney was convicted of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated for killing the driver of a semi-truck in a fiery crash on the 22 Freeway in 2019, the Orange County District Attorney’s office announced.
Lotfullah Sohaib Latif, 33, was convicted Monday of one felony count of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, one felony count of driving under the influence of alcohol causing injury, one felony count of driving under the influence with a blood alcohol content of .08 percent or more causing injury, and three felony enhancements of inflicting great bodily injury.
Sohaib Latif faces a maximum sentence of ten years in state prison when he is sentenced on Jan. 9, 2026, according to OCDA Todd Spitzer.
According to Spitzer, the crash was reported on June 9, 2019 at around 3:55 a.m., when the California Highway Patrol received multiple calls about a gray Honda Accord that was blacked out in the lanes on the 22 freeway.
A few minutes later, dispatchers received calls about a semi-truck crashing into the Honda before bursting into flames. The driver of the semi-truck, 58-year-old Carlos Alberto Lara, was pronounced dead at the scene.
According to Spitzer, when Latif was contacted by CHP officers, he denied drinking or having been involved in a crash. Officers noticed Latif’s license plate near a broken guardrail, his right passenger door on the shoulder, and alcohol on his breath.
The Honda’s Event Data Recorder, known as a vehicle’s “black box,” recorded the Honda going 89 miles per hour seconds prior to crashing with the guard rail, Spitzer said.
“Every day, approximately 34 people die in America in a drunk driving crash. That is one person every 42 minutes who is killed as a result of a selfish decision to get behind the wheel and drive while intoxicated,” Spitzer said. “Drunk driving is a crime that is 100 percent preventable, and countless innocent lives would be saved if a night of drinking never included getting behind the wheel of a deadly weapon and driving. If this defendant had made the right decision, Mr. Lara would have been able to go home safely to his family that night instead of being killed by a stranger in a completely preventable crash.”