A St. Peters man has pleaded guilty in a 2024 crash that killed a St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department officer.
Ramon Chavez-Rodriguez, 25, admitted in court Tuesday that he was drunk and had drugs in his system when he lost control of his vehicle on eastbound Interstate 70 near North Grand Avenue around 8:30 a.m. Sept. 22, 2024. The SUV spun and hit officer David Lee, who was on the highway responding to another crash. Lee was pinned between two vehicles, then thrown several feet. He died in surgery later that day.
St. Louis Circuit Judge Madeline Connolly will sentence Chavez-Rodriguez at a later date. Under Missouri law, he faces a maximum of 15 years in prison. He was on probation for a 2020 domestic violence conviction at the time of the crash; last month, a judge in St. Charles County revoked his probation and sent him to prison for seven years.
St. Louis prosecutors are asking for 15 years, to be served consecutively with the St. Charles sentence.
Assistant Circuit Attorney Grant Simon told the court that had the case gone to trial, prosecutors would have shown that Chavez-Rodriguez was speeding and did not have a valid driver's license at the time of the crash, which left Lee with extensive injuries. Chavez-Rodriguez, Simon said, had cocaine, methamphetamine and ketamine in his system as well as alcohol. According to court documents, his blood alcohol content was 0.10 two hours after the crash, above Missouri's legal limit of 0.08.
Prosecutors dropped the speeding charge on Oct. 20. In addition to the felony DWI charge. Chavez-Rodriguez pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for driving without a license. For that charge, he could face a fine of up to $500.
Chavez-Rodriguez did not speak much during the hearing, except to answer Connolly’s questions posed to him by an interpreter. He said he had completed the 6th grade and had been working in construction at the time of the crash. He is married with five children and told the judge that while he is medicated for ADHD, it did not impact his ability to understand the court proceedings.
Nearly two dozen SLMPD officers, including Chief Robert Tracy and Lee’s commander, Lt. Paul Lauer, watched the proceedings in Connolly’s courtroom. Tracy called it a somber day that he hoped would bring closure to the department’s employees.
“I'm glad he came forward and said, ‘Yeah, I am guilty.’ You usually don’t see that,” Tracy said of Chavez-Rodriguez.
He added that the plea protected Lee’s family and the department from the trauma of a trial.
“You start to see some things that a good defense attorney is going to have to do to protect their client, and sometimes it's going to open up some wounds and actually drag the police officers and the family through something,” Tracy said.
Lauer said Lee is missed by his colleagues in the traffic safety unit.
“He was dedicated, very professional, but always kind of quiet. Sometimes you would forget that he was in the room. But we always enjoyed working with him,” Lauer said.
Because he is in the country without legal status, Chavez-Rodriguez is likely to be deported to his native Honduras after serving his time in both cases.
Chavez-Rodriguez had been set to go to trial Monday.
This story has been updated with details from the court hearing and comments from the SLMPD.
