A former city employee who admitted to supplying the drugs that caused a woman he’d been dating to overdose was sentenced Thursday to 11 years in state prison as part of a plea agreement with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office.
As part of the deal, the former employee, Jarid Nakamura, pleaded guilty in January to one count of voluntary manslaughter and admitted the aggravating factor that the victim, Sokly Sar, was vulnerable at the time of the crime.
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Nakamura previously faced one count of murder in connection to Sar’s death on July 6, 2020.
Sar, according to authorities, was found dead in the 1700 block of Cedar Avenue.
An autopsy of Sar’s body revealed she had overdosed on a combination of methamphetamine and alcohol. Her death was ruled an accident as there was limited evidence at the time that somebody else was responsible.
But nearly three years later, Nakamura walked into the Long Beach Police Department headquarters in Downtown and asked to speak with detectives about Sar’s death.
That’s when he told the detectives that he had given Sar the drugs that killed her, police said.
Nakamura’s attorney, Bryan Schroeder, said this was a difficult case but felt it turned out in a way that was fair to both sides.
“He didn’t intend to kill her,” Schroeder said. “But he did do something that caused her death.”
At the time of the crime, Nakamura had worked with the city’s Harbor Department for roughly three years. Records show he worked as a maintenance assistant. He previously worked with the same department from 2009 to 2010.