LIVERMORE — The Florida trucker who was charged for a 2020 car crash that killed three teens has pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor and received his sentence: a driver’s educational course and a chance to wipe his record clean.
Ivenet Frederic, 35, was originally charged with three felony manslaughter counts, in the deaths of Rahal Brar, 18, Shej Kumar, 16, and Ian Ericksen, 16, who were killed after a Mercedes Benz that Brar was driving collided with a Kenworth truck that was blocking the roadway. In 2022, the charges were reduced to misdemeanors after Alameda County Judge Michael Gaffey ruled there was not enough evidence to prove that Frederic committed a felony by allegedly turning against a sign and getting his truck stuck on Las Positas Road, where the collision occurred, court records show.
But in a plea reached in September, Alameda County prosecutors allowed Frederic, an Orlando resident, to plead no contest to a lesser offense of obstructing a public roadway, a misdemeanor count more typically associated with the prosecution of aggressive panhandlers. Frederic’s criminal record can be wiped clean if he avoids arrests and complete’s the driving safety course, court records show.
Frederic’s grace period expires in March 2026. If he fails to live up to his end of the bargain, the charge he pleaded no contest to carries 180 days in jail, records show. He has been out of jail since posting $15,000 bail in 2022.
Frederic was accused of turning against a sign on the 5600 block of Las Positas Road, resulting in his truck becoming stuck at about 10:30 p.m. on Dec. 22, 2020. He allegedly exited the truck to warn a nearby business owner of his predicament, and shortly thereafter the Mercedes slammed into the Kenworth. All three teens died from blunt force trauma.
Prosecutors argued that Frederic committed two infractions by making the unsafe turn and leaving his truck in the middle of the roadway. Frederic’s attorneys argued that established case law requires more than “a simple violation of a traffic infraction” to demonstrate gross negligence and justify a felony charge. Gaffey made his ruling at a Sept. 29 preliminary hearing, records show.
Brar, the driver of the Mercedes, was giving his cousin, Kumar, and their friend, Ericksen, a ride home from their job at a nearby ice cream parlor. Kumar attended Del Valle Continuation High School, and Ericksen went to Livermore High School. Brar was a recent graduate of Vineyard High School in Livermore.
The crash occurred just short of the one-year anniversary of a tragically similar crash that claimed the lives of three teenage boys on Christmas Day in nearby Pleasanton. The three were 16-year-old Dublin High School students Javier Ramirez and twin brothers Mark Anthony Urista and Michael Angelo Urista.
