OAKLAND — Just days after convincing a judge to uphold the case against a man accused of killing a 73-year-old woman in a hit and run crash, prosecutors reversed course and dismissed the case, citing a lack of evidence, court records show.
The legal maneuver means that 26-year-old Jose Perez, of San Leandro, will no longer face vehicular manslaughter or hit and run charges in the May 31, 2022 death of Emelia Martinez Roa, who was killed after a stolen Hummer struck her as she walked across 16th Avenue in Oakland. The case against Perez was based on video evidence that depicted the crash, and later showed Perez getting out of the driver’s side of the Hummer at an East Bay shopping center.
Had Perez’s trial taken place, it likely would have centered on his hairstyle during the day of the crash. Surveillance footage shows Perez had his long hair tied up and wrapped in a messy bun as he walked through the front door of the shopping center roughly three hours after the crash, and the hair of the driver appeared roughly the same based on a traffic camera that depicted the crash.
There was just one problem for prosecutors: Perez’s girlfriend was with him that day, and her hair was configured in roughly the same way. Not only that, but an eyewitness to the collision testified at Perez’s preliminary hearing that “to me, it was a female driver,” but prosecutors relied on police testimony to convince a judge that there was ample evidence that Perez was actually behind the wheel.
Perez’s attorney argued in a dismissal motion that all prosecutors really had was video showing that the driver could have been either of the Hummer’s two occupants. The defense argued it was impossible to disprove that the Hummer had switched drivers in the three hours between the collision and the shopping center surveillance footage showing Perez getting out of the driver’ side.
The defense motion to dismiss was heard on June 28, and Judge Thomas Reardon ruled with the prosecution, denying the motion. But the legal standard for such motions is less than what a jury would have been given had Perez’s case gone to trial. Just two weeks after winning in court, on July 11, prosecutors formally dismissed the charges against Perez, citing “insufficient evidence,” according to court records.
But the dismissal wasn’t quite the end of Perez’s legal problems.
On Aug. 21, he went back to court to accept a plea deal on charges that he evaded police in a stolen car during an unrelated January 2024 incident in Union City. Perez pleaded no contest to possessing a stolen car and the remainder of the case was dismissed, records show. He remains jailed with a sentencing hearing set for Oct. 18.
