Former Sacramento deputy pleads no contest to DUI charge
A former Sacramento County sheriff’s deputy has pleaded no contest to driving under the influence of prescription drugs when she plowed her car into a Natomas-area Starbucks two years ago and injured a 75-year-old woman.
Lisa Gargano, 38, is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 21 by Sacramento Superior Court Judge Gary E. Ransom. She faces two years in state prison. Under the terms of Gargano’s plea deal entered Wednesday, she is likely to receive credit for having served almost all of her sentence so far in local custody, according to her lawyer.
“It was a hard decision for Lisa to make,” defense attorney Michael Bowman said. “She spent her whole life in service of the community.
“She dedicated her life to helping people, and she wound up hurting somebody, and she feels terrible. She wanted to get this behind her.
“I’ve never seen a more remorseful client.”
According to the lawyer, Gargano had been taking pills to relieve pain and deal with complications from an on-the-job injury.
Off duty at the time of the wreck, the since-fired deputy was under the influence of painkillers, sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medications when she lurched her Nissan Xterra through a window and into the coffeehouse on Duckhorn Drive. Witnesses said she had been driving with a flat rear tire.
Gargano’s car pinned a woman identified as Marilyn Overman to the counter, cutting her hand and bruising her knee. The gash required several stitches to close.
“You can still see how swollen my foot is,” Overman testified at Gargano’s March 2010 preliminary hearing.
Prosecutors added an allegation of great bodily injury to the complaint against Gargano. The allegation turned Gargano’s no-contest plea into a “strike” that can be used to double her term if she is convicted in any future cases, according to Deputy District Attorney Caroline Park.
Free on bail after the Sept. 6, 2009, Starbucks crash, Gargano collided with another car in the same shopping center parking lot barely four months later. She was then locked up in lieu of $750,000 bail.
She’s remained in custody since her second arrest, Bowman said.
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