{"id":178389,"date":"2026-02-14T22:33:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T22:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/178389\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T22:33:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T22:33:19","slug":"san-francisco-mercedes-driver-will-likely-get-no-prison-time-for-wiping-out-young-family-of-four-because-she-is-80","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/178389\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco Mercedes driver will likely get NO prison time for wiping out young family of four because she is 80"},"content":{"rendered":"

An 80-year-old San Francisco woman who drove her Mercedes into a family of four<\/a>, killing them, will likely not face any prison time due to her old age.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mary Fong Lau had pleaded no contest to four counts of vehicular manslaughter for the deaths of Apple executive Diego Cardoso de Oliveira<\/a>, his wife Matilde Ramos Pinto, and their two children, Joaquim and\u00a0Cau\u00ea, in March 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She had previously pleaded not guilty, but changed her plea on Friday.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The family of four had been waiting for the bus to go to the San Francisco Zoo when Lau hit them at a high speed<\/a> in a residential neighborhood.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite killing four, Lau will more than like only serve two to three years probation because of her age, the ‘remorse’ she showed in changing her plea and fact she does not have a criminal record. She is also expected to lose her ability to drive, according to the San Francisco Chronicle<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Bruce Chan acknowledged the family’s deaths are ‘incomprehensible,’ but said giving Lau prison time would be ‘sentencing her to die within the state prison system.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Mrs. Lau is going to spend the rest of her days living with the knowledge of the harm she has caused to others,’ Chan said in court.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her sentence will be confirmed at a separate hearing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Mary <\/p>\n

Mary Fong Lau, 80, had pleaded no contest to four counts of vehicular manslaughter on Friday, changing her plea from not guilty\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Apple <\/p>\n

Apple executive Diego Cardoso de Oliveira , his wife Matilde Ramos Pinto, and their two children Joaquim and Cau\u00ea were sitting at a bus stop in March 2024 when they were fatally hit<\/p>\n

\"Lau <\/p>\n

Lau had been driving at a high speed through a residential neighborhood\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chan also factored in Lau’s husband dying years ago in a car crash into his tentative decision to give her a lesser sentence, The Chronicle reported.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lau had cried at the hospital when she learned of their deaths and told medical staff she wish she could have traded places with them, the judge said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Relatives of the parents weren’t entirely happy to hear the judge was considering letting Lau off free, and requested she be sentenced to home detention, community service, and have her license revoked, The Chronicle reported.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘It feels like we have no rights,’ Cardoso de Oliveira’s sister, Denise Oliveira, told the judge. ‘I feel deeply disrespected by this process. It doesn’t feel like this is justice.’\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Assistant District Attorney Samantha Persaud agreed, also objecting to Lau’s no-contest plea. She indicated she would also like to see home detention as her sentence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The victim’s attorney, James Quadra, said a plea of no contest ‘avoids the moral accountability that this case demands,’ according to KTVU<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘What happened on March 16, 2024, was not a minor mistake,’ he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fong’s attorney, Seth Morris, however, said his client had to seek psychiatric help to deal with her grief and that she was tearing up in court on Friday while a translator advised her.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Lau <\/p>\n

Lau was seen being comforted in court on Friday. She will more than likely only receive probation for her crimes, as the judge is taking her age into account\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Matilde \"Diego, <\/p>\n

Diego, a creative director at Apple, was from Brazil\u00a0and Matilde was a film and advertising producer from Portugal<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The couple was taken their children to the zoo to celebrate the wedding anniversary<\/p>\n

Morris said the potential lesser sentence is ‘good news’ and that’s ‘going to be the end of this chapter.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, despite Lau’s criminal case almost being over, her time in court isn’t ending.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The couple’s parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Lau. They filed an additional civil lawsuit to void any financial transfers Lau may have made after their wrongful death suit was filed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They have accused the elderly lady of transferring properties and new limited liability companies, which could amount to millions of dollars, which could affect their lawsuit.<\/p>\n

The Daily Mail has reached out to Fong for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The family had been planning to spend the couple’s anniversary at the zoo when the tragedy happened.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other people waiting for the bus to arrive were also injured in the crash and received medical attention.<\/p>\n

One witness, Nikki Mashburn, told The San Francisco Chronicle that she heard the crash and that it sounded like ‘an explosion.’<\/p>\n

Diego, a creative director at Apple, was from Brazil and Matilde was a film and advertising producer from Portugal.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An 80-year-old San Francisco woman who drove her Mercedes into a family of four, killing them, will likely…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[6856,226,100,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-178389","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-apple","9":"tag-dailymail","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-san-francisco","12":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","13":"tag-san-francisco-news","14":"tag-sf","15":"tag-sf-headlines","16":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}