Cloverdale man sentenced to five years in prison for wrong-way DUI crash

A 35-year-old Cloverdale man was sentenced Thursday to five years in state prison for felony drunken driving that factored in a head-on collision on Highway 12 in April, his third involvement in a DUI case, prosecutors said.

Francisco Sanchez Delgado had previously pleaded no contest to a DUI crash, causing great bodily injury, April 21 that left another man with a broken foot, the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release.

Minutes before the collision, another driver, who pulled off the road to avoid getting hit, called 911 to report that Delgado was driving in the wrong direction, the release stated. The crash occurred before police reached the area.

Officers “observed objective signs of alcohol intoxication,” and a blood test determined his blood alcohol level was 0.13 percent, nearly twice the legal limit under state law, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

At the time, Delgado had charges pending from another DUI incident in January and he had a misdemeanor DUI conviction from May 2009.

District Attorney Jill Ravitch said that the prison sentence handed down by Judge Gary Medvigy was appropriate, noting that Delgado “made the decision to endanger the lives of multiple people by driving impaired. By sheer luck he did not kill the victim in this case.”

Delgado had been warned by the court previously that he could be charged with murder for killing someone while driving drunk, Ravitch said. “He still chose, on two additional occasions, to get behind the wheel intoxicated.”

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @guykovner.