OXNARD : Driver Held in Fatal Hit-Run Accident

A 23-year-old driver is being held on suspicion of felony drunk driving and vehicular manslaughter in the hit-and-run death of a 52-year-old Ojai man who was riding his motor scooter.

The accident occurred about 4:40 p.m. Thursday on Vineyard Avenue, seven-tenths of a mile north of Central Avenue. According to the California Highway Patrol, a pickup truck driven by Sabino S. Olivera struck William Jerry Blue from behind while traveling north on Vineyard.

Blue was taken to St. John’s Regional Medical Center where he was pronounced dead as the result of chest injuries. He was a federal inspector of offshore oil platforms and is survived by a wife and two daughters.

Witnesses told traffic investigators that the truck’s operator had been driving erratically at 80 to 90 m.p.h. when he allegedly swerved into Blue’s lane and hit him.

The driver of the truck fled the scene, but an anonymous caller gave CHP officers a possible license plate number. CHP officers traced it to Olivera’s apartment on Channel Islands Boulevard in Oxnard.

When they arrived, they discovered that Olivera had already been arrested by Oxnard police for outstanding warrants. Police had been called to Olivera’s apartment after he allegedly crashed his pickup into a wall at the apartment building.

CHP officers arrested Olivera at the Oxnard police station in connection with the fatal accident.

He was booked into County Jail on charges of felony drunken driving, vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and felony hit-and-run. The bail for those charges was set at $50,000, but Olivera was being held without bail at the request of the U.S. Border Patrol, CHP officials said.

Olivera is scheduled to appear for an arraignment in Ventura County Municipal Court on Monday.