Man pleads not guilty in double-fatal Haight-Ashbury crash

By Ari Burack

December 18, 2007

A 22-year-old man accused of killing two men while fleeing from police in a stolen car early Tuesday morning pleaded not guilty to vehicular manslaughter charges yesterday in San Francisco Superior Court.

Richard Gosnell, of San Francisco, is alleged to have been driving a stolen silver Saturn sedan at about 4 a.m. when police in the Haight-Ashbury District ran the license plate and attempted to stop the vehicle.

Gosnell allegedly fled from police and at about 4:30 a.m. drove through a red light at Divisadero and Page streets, slamming into a red Chevrolet and killing the car's two occupants, Kristopher Bratt, 20, of Mill Valley, and Alfonzo Felipe Cortez, 36.

Two men died Tuesday after a stolen Silver Saturn ran a red light
and plowed into a red Chevrolet in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco.
The medical examiner's office has identified the victims as Kristopher Bratt, 20,
of Mill Valley, and Alfonzo Felipe Cortez, 36, of an unknown address.
Photos by Stephen Dorion Miner

The San Francisco District Attorney's Office has charged Gosnell with two felony counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, one felony count of auto theft, one felony count of possessing a stolen vehicle, one felony count of evading a police officer resulting in the death of another person, and one misdemeanor count of driving without a valid license.

Gosnell has a prior conviction in 2006 for burglary, for which he received three years' probation, according to the district attorney's office.

Through his newly appointed attorney, Gosnell pleaded not guilty this morning to all the charges. He has been ordered held on $1 million bail in this case, and will reappear in court on Jan. 23 to set a date for his preliminary hearing and to be arraigned on a prosecutors' motion to have his probation revoked.

The only passenger in the Saturn, 22-year-old Joshua Wilson, has not yet been charged pending additional investigation into the accident, according to the district attorney's office.

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