The son of a former Oceanside police captain convicted of fatally running over a Caltrans contractor was sentenced Friday in the North County division of San Diego Superior Court.
Reginald Grigsby Jr., 32, of Vista, was sentenced to six years in prison and must pay an $1800 restitution fine and court fees.
Grigsby drove off Centre City Parkway near Escondido, fatally hitting a worker who was fixing sprinklers along Interstate 15, killing him instantly in September 2015.
The victim, 21-year-old Leonardo Sandoval of Murrieta, had a one-year-old son and was engaged to be married, his family told NBC 7.
Grigsby, a former San Diego State University standout football star, had a history of mental illness. In 2009, he attacked his mother while his father tried to pull him away at the family’s Fallbrook residence.
Reginald Grigsby Senior, the defendant’s father, was then an Oceanside police captain. He said he was forced to shoot his son twice in defense of his wife’s life.
Prosecutors said Grigsby had therapeutic levels of his bi-polar schizophrenia medication in his system at the time of the crash that claimed Sandoval’s life.
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The defense attorney argued for probation saying Grigsby was extremely remorseful, but the judge said he had to take into account that an innocent family would never be the same, and a little boy would grow up without his father.
Sandoval’s family told NBC 7 they planned to attend the sentencing hearing and hoped for justice.
“[Sandoval] loved my daughter, took care of her and my grandson," said James Sanchez, step-dad of the victim's fiancé. "It's a shame that one despicable man can change all that for a ton of people. I hope justice does what it's supposed to do."
In court Friday Sandoval’s brother-in-law said that only God knows what’s in the defendant’s heart, but if he is truly sorry then the family forgives him.
