Man drives Yosemite park ranger’s stolen car off 200-foot cliff and survives, feds say
A man accused of stealing a Yosemite National Park ranger’s car and then driving it off a cliff in a high-speed chase has been indicted by a federal grand jury, according to a news release.
A federal grand jury indicted the 28-year-old Rancho Cucamonga man on Thursday, Feb. 15, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert. The man faces charges of theft of personal property, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and fleeing or eluding a police officer stemming from a Dec. 26, 2022 incident.
The man is accused of stealing a Yosemite park employee’s car after they had pulled off to the side of the road to remove a bike from the roadway, prosecutors said in the release. That led to a high-speed, wrong-way chase along the Ferguson Slide bridge.
The man driving the park employee’s car drove the wrong way onto the bridge and hit another vehicle head-on, prosecutors said.
The man driving the stolen employee’s car drove it off a cliff and plunged about 200 feet to the bottom of a canyon, prosecutors said.
Rancho Cucamonga is a Southern California suburb about 40 miles east of Los Angeles, and about 300 miles southeast of Yosemite National Park.
The man survived the crash and faces a total of 13 years in federal prison and $510,000 in fines, prosecutors said.
This story was originally published February 19, 2024 at 12:01 PM with the headline "Man drives Yosemite park ranger’s stolen car off 200-foot cliff and survives, feds say."
