A St. Peters man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for a drunken crash that killed St. Louis police officer David Lee in 2024.
“Do I think he is an evil person, a bad person, or that he intended to kill David Lee, no,” said St. Louis Circuit Judge Madeline Connolly on Thursday as she handed down the sentence to 25-year-old Ramon Chavez-Rodriguez. “The bottom line is, he drank, he drove and he killed an individual.”
The sentence length, the maximum allowed under state law, is what prosecutors had requested, but it will be served at the same time as a seven-year sentence for a criminal case in St. Charles County. Prosecutors had wanted them to be served consecutively.
Chavez-Rodriguez admitted in October 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. on Sept. 22, 2024. The SUV spun and hit Lee, who was on the highway responding to another accident. Lee was pinned between his vehicle and Chavez-Rodriguez’s, then thrown several feet. Lee died in surgery later that day.
Connolly’s courtroom on the 7th floor of the Cahill courthouse in downtown was packed. Nearly 30 of Lee’s fellow officers, including Chief Robert Tracy, were present at the hearing, with many standing along walls in the back and sides. Lee’s family and Chavez-Rodriguez’s family were seated on benches separated only by a center aisle. A contingent of individuals involved with MADD, a nonprofit that pushes to end impaired driving, also attended the hearing.
Lee’s sister, Danielle Williams, told the court that he had been an amazing big brother - “my protector, my therapist, my negotiator.”
“I’ve lost loved ones before,” she said. “This death hit hard. It hit different. My brother wasn't elderly, he wasn’t sick, and he definitely didn’t deserve the consequences of [Chavez-Rodriguez’s] actions.”
Dorothy Williams, Lee’s mother, said she knew Chavez-Rodriguez had not deliberately killed her son.
“But that does not negate the fact that it happened,” she said through tears. “My first child, the reason I am a mother, is no longer here because of your actions.”
“From this beautiful nation, from the bottom of my heart, I ask for forgiveness,” Chavez Rodriguez told the court through an interpreter. “I have made mistakes. I am human. I never wanted anything like that.”
Because he is in the country without legal status, Chavez-Rodriguez is likely to be deported to his native Honduras after serving his prison time. His wife is a U.S. citizen, as are their three children together.
This story has been updated with scenes and testimony from the court hearing.
