A 35-year-old man was sentenced on Friday, Oct. 10, to 10 years in prison for a fatal crash in Buena Park.

He could have gotten much less time.

Jose Luis Contrerasdiaz pleaded guilty March 20 to gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, driving under the influence of alcohol causing injury, driving with a blood-alcohol level of .08% or more causing injury, all felonies, and a misdemeanor count of driving without a valid driver’s license.

He was due to be sentenced June 13 — but he failed to appear for the hearing, prompting Orange County Superior Court Judge Larry Yellin to issue a warrant for the defendant’s arrest. Yellin had offered Contrerasdiaz a six-year sentence before that.

Contrerasdiaz was booked in Orange County Jail 10 days later.

Contrerasdiaz “went on a bit of a bender” that got him booted from monitored outpatient sobriety treatment after his guilty plea, Deputy District Attorney Devin Campbell said in court in June.

When the defendant pled guilty, he had 192 days credit behind bars.

Contrerasdiaz had a blood-alcohol level of 0.12% while speeding and ran a red light causing the crash just after midnight on Oct. 10, 2022, on Beach Boulevard near the 91 Freeway, according to court records. The collision killed 67-year-old Mohan Ganesh Dhuri of Anaheim.

Contrerasdiaz was “redlining his new Jeep Saraha at 110 mph on a city street while drunk, running a red light and colliding into (the victim’s) car as the victim made a left turn from a freeway off-ramp,” Campbell said in a sentencing brief.

The defendant started drinking again five days after he pled guilty and through the end of March, Campbell said. The prosecutor recommended a sentence of 10 years and six months.

The defendant “has now demonstrated in multiple ways in the months since his plea that he just doesn’t care,” Campbell said. “Apparently, killing another human being wasn’t enough of a wake-up call for him. Apparently, whatever he was doing pre-plea to ‘get on the right track” was all for show.”

Originally Published: October 10, 2025 at 8:39 PM PDT