Hit-and-Run Report Disputed
By Katherine Shaver
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 22, 2000

An attorney for the Alexandria man charged with hitting and killing a pedestrian in downtown Silver Spring and then driving away said yesterday that he disputes a police officer's allegation that his client knew he had struck a person.

Asking a Montgomery County judge to reduce the $500,000 bond against Pedro Gutierrez, 36, Rockville lawyer David Schiller said Gutierrez knew only that he struck "something heavy" like a traffic sign Dec. 8 on East-West Highway near 16th Street.

Schiller said he takes issue with a Montgomery police detective's statement in charging documents that Gutierrez admitted to seeing someone lying in the road before he drove away.

Gutierrez is charged with seven traffic offenses in the hit-and-run that killed Rajiv S. Vaidya, 26, who was struck while standing on a median as he crossed East-West Highway. Witnesses told police that a maroon car veered onto the raised median, hit a sign and then struck Vaidya before the driver got out, checked his car and drove away. Vaidya, an aspiring writer, died three days later.

Montgomery District Court Judge Stephen P. Johnson reduced Gutierrez's bail to $50,000 cash, seeming to agree with prosecutors' argument that Gutierrez was a flight risk because he is accused of fleeing a fatal collision.

"How could he have not seen the pedestrian?" Johnson asked Schiller. "And if he did see the pedestrian, is he not a flight risk because he fled?"

Detective Chris Fumagalli wrote in charging documents that Gutierrez told police that he stopped his Nissan after hitting a sign, "picked up several pieces that had broken off his car and placed them inside his car" as several people approached him.

"Gutierrez indicated he looked back towards the point of impact and saw a pedestrian laying in the roadway," the detective wrote. "Gutierrez stated he got very scared and left the scene without identifying himself or helping the struck pedestrian."

Gutierrez was arrested Wednesday, after a police officer spotted his burgundy Nissan -- which police said matched the description of the car that hit Vaidya -- parked near a Silver Spring apartment complex.

Schiller said Johnson's family -- about 10 relatives were in court for the bond hearing -- was trying to come up with the money to post his bail. His trial is scheduled for Jan. 16. The most serious charge, leaving the scene of a fatal collision, carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Gutierrez, who appeared on closed-circuit television from the Montgomery jail, said little beyond telling the judge through a Spanish interpreter that he was a cook at the Occidental Grill restaurant in Washington until his arrest but that he is now unemployed.

Assistant Montgomery State's Attorneys Tom Eldridge and Tom DeGonia said Gutierrez took steps to "cover up" the fact that he had been in a collision, including replacing the bumper on his car.

                                     © 2000 The Washington Post

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