‘Preventable tragedy’: Ventura County driver sentenced to prison for double-fatal 124-mph crash

A Pico Rivera man who killed his friend and girlfriend in a 124-mile-per-hour crash in Ventura County has been sentenced to more than five years in prison, officials said this week.

Leonardo Rodriguez, 21, was driving a black Honda Accord south on U.S. 101 near Thousand Oaks early on the morning of Oct. 31, 2024, when he tried to pass a car that was in the slow lane using the shoulder, the Ventura County district attorney’s office said Friday in a statement.

Reaching a top speed of 124 mph, Rodriguez crashed into a tractor-trailer parked in the shoulder, the office said. The impact threw his girlfriend, Serenity Rizkalla, and a friend, Michael Estrella, from the car. Both passengers were pronounced dead at the scene.

Rodriguez and another friend who was in the car suffered minor injuries.

“This tragedy was preventable, and (the victims’) families will forever live with the consequences,” Deputy Dist. Atty. George Brietigam said in a statement. “We hope today’s sentence provides their loved ones with some measure of closure.”

Rodriguez pleaded guilty to two counts of gross vehicular manslaughter in June.