A Long Beach family is frustrated that an admitted drunk driver who caused a deadly crash is expected to serve only a short time behind bars.
The driver, 31-year-old Julie Haq, pleaded no contest last month to one count of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated for slamming into the car of 60-year-old Rodger Watkins on the rainy night of Feb. 20. Prosecutors said she was going nearly 90 mph.
In an apology she wrote to Watkins’ family, Haq said she and a friend split two bottles of wine before she got behind the wheel.
“I am sure Mr. Watkins is in your thoughts every day, as he is in mine,” she said in part. “I see him in every stranger I encounter, feeling a hollow in my heart, knowing that I could have endangered anyone that night. I will carry the weight of this loss with me every day.”
Haq’s no-contest plea means the judge on the case could sentence her to 4, 6 or 10 years in prison, but Watkins’ daughter, Mariela Salgado, said prosecutors have said she’ll likely receive the lower end of that range at a hearing on Dec. 13. Any prison time she receives will also be reduced by the time she has already spent on house arrest since she turned herself in to face charges on May 1. If she is granted good behavior credit, that could further reduce prison time and result in her being released after less than two years behind bars, according to Salgado.
“Our family is beyond disappointed by the justice system,” Salgado said in an email to the Long Beach Post last week. “She has yet to serve a night in jail — a woman that by all accounts was beyond reckless and took a life. A beautiful life we greatly miss.”
Watkins, who worked as a custodian at Cal State Long Beach, had five children with his wife Maria. About 150 people, including his CSULB co-workers, gathered two weeks after his death to commemorate what would’ve been his 61st birthday, according to Salgado.
The words in Haq’s apology, “don’t encompass the loss, anger and disappointment we have,” Salgado said.
Haq also offered an explanation of what happened that night.
She wrote that she had been sick for six days and a friend had offered to bring over soup. Haq wrote that the friend brought two bottles of wine, which they finished over the span of three and a half hours.
Later, Haq received a “frantic phone call” from another friend’s husband who said her friend was having a medical emergency. He asked Haq to go to the UC Irvine ER to help watch over their sleeping 8-month-old child or to stay at their house overnight to help with their dog.
Haq never made it there. Prosecutors said she ran a red light at Atlantic Avenue and Anaheim Street and sent Watkins’ car careening into a building.
Since the crash, Haq wrote that she had attended 369 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, completed a 3-month DUI course and logged 130.5 hours of community service at Meals on Wheels, Long Beach Library and the Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden.
Salgado said her family is struggling to comprehend what they see as a light penalty compared to some other drunk driving incidents in Long Beach.
She pointed to the case of Carlo Navarro, a 20-year-old who was charged with murder in addition to vehicular manslaughter when he crashed into and killed a couple and their 3-year-old son on Halloween night in 2019.
“We were told the difference is Julie A. Haq had no prior criminal record,” Salgado said. “Yet for us, she acted with the same level of disregard for life.”
Salgado said her family has received support from another grieving Long Beach woman, Lily Gossage, whose 16-year-old son was killed while he was crossing the street in 2021.
Salgado said Gossage warned her family not to have high expectations.
In Gossage’s case, the man who pleaded no contest to killing her son, Aiden, was sentenced to six months in county jail, followed by 30 days of community service and two years of formal probation.
Salgado said her family plans to attend the Dec. 13 sentencing, where they’ll have the chance to speak their minds.