Jury Convicts Former Physician in Mandeville Canyon Road Bicycle Crash

Jury Convicts Former Physician in
Mandeville Canyon Road Bicycle Crash

November 2, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts: Joe Scott, Director of Communications
Sandi Gibbons, Public Information Officer
Jane Robison, News Secretary
Shiara Dávila-Morales, Assistant PIO
(213) 974-3525

LOS ANGELES – A Superior Court jury deliberated three hours before convicting a former emergency room physician of reckless driving, assault, battery and mayhem in connection with a July 4, 2008, incident on Mandeville Canyon Road that left two bicyclists seriously injured.

Deputy District Attorney Mary Stone said that after the verdict was read at the Airport Branch Court, trial Judge Scott Millington ordered 60-year-old Christopher Thomas Thompson jailed. Sentencing was scheduled for Dec. 3. Stone said the defendant faces a maximum 10-year state prison term.

Stone said the jury convicted Thompson of one count of reckless driving causing specified injury, two counts of battery with serious injury, one count of reckless driving, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon (an automobile) and one count of mayhem. On the two assault counts, the jury found true the victims suffered great bodily injury.

Authorities said Thompson slammed on the brakes of his Infiniti sedan in front of two cyclists riding on Mandeville Canyon Road on July 4, 2008. The impact propelled one cyclist through the car window, causing the rider to suffer broken teeth, facials cuts, and a broken and nearly severed nose. The second cyclist crashed to the pavement and suffered a shoulder separation that required surgery.

Thompson, the owner of a medical documentation company in Woodland Hills, was arrested and freed on $30,000 bail. The defendant, who lives on Mandeville Canyon Road, was charged on July 11, 2008.

The jury began deliberating late Friday and returned the verdicts this afternoon.

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