"I can't drive 55!"
Posted on 10/16/2006 6:31:07 PM PDT by Mr. Brightside
Today: October 16, 2006 at 12:45:12 PDT
L.A. Ferrari Crash Driver Rejects Plea
By ANDREW GLAZER ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A Swedish businessman who authorities say crashed a stolen Ferrari sports car worth $1.5 million on Pacific Coast Highway turned down a plea deal Monday that would have had him spend two years and four months in prison.
"I cannot agree that I stole the car because I didn't," said Bo Stefan Eriksson, 44, speaking through a Swedish interpreter in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Details of the offered plea deal were not immediately released.
Eriksson is charged with three counts of embezzlement, three counts of grand theft and illegal gun possession, all felonies. He also faces two misdemeanor counts of drunken driving. If convicted on all charges, he could face up to 11 years in prison.
His rejection of the deal came as jury selection began in the case.
Prosecutors allege that Eriksson illegally imported two rare Ferrari Enzo sports cars and a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren to the United States from Great Britain. One of the Enzos was destroyed Feb. 21 when Eriksson hit a utility pole in Malibu at 162 mph. Eriksson initially identified the driver as a German man named Dietrich, who authorities couldn't find. He also claimed he was a deputy commissioner with the "anti-terrorism division" of a small transit agency in the suburban San Gabriel Valley, authorities said.
Eriksson is a former executive with Gizmondo Europe Ltd., a computer game company that went bankrupt last year. He spent five years in a Swedish prison in the 1990s for assault, extortion and other crimes.
This case has been bizarre from the start. I'm very surprised this clown hasn't skipped across the border for far away lands ...
So that's the very official, technical route he took to get the anti-terrorism title.
Lame, huh?
And he had a lot of brass, so with this title, he went out and got concealed carry (in LA!) and bought all kinds of very un-Sweedish, kooky ninja gear.
"I can't drive 55!"
I googled Gizmondo Games. I think he must have thought he was playing one of them.
Maybe Gizmondo Motocross, Fathammer Driving, Point of Destruction, or Hit and Myth.
So who did he steal it from?
http://www.wreckedexotics.com/special/enzo/
Update: Feb 23 - 7:30 PM EST - It appears Mr Eriksson may have destroyed a car which didn't belong to him. Police said the car was the property of the Bank of Scotland and was in the process of being repossessed at the time of the crash. The word on the street is the Ferrari was obtained through fraudulent financing along with a Mercedes SLR. When the bank found out, Eriksson simply shipped the Ferrari to the United State. The car had a European registration and nothing had been done to make it street legal in California.
He bought it in Europe, exported it to the US, then stopped making payments.
With such a long rap sheet, how on earth did this criminal ever get a visa to enter the USA?
Maybe he avoided scrutiny by custom officials by using his nickname "Ali el Mohammad."
He should be shot for wrecking a beautiful car like that doing something as stupid as he was. That it was stolen is secondary to me.
No car is worth 1.5 million dollars.
It takes a madman to spend that kind of money for a vehicle and an even madder insurance company that would insure it.
Still, some people pay $30,000 dollars for a Harley every day and then rip the mufflers off it.
You don't usually hear "Safety" and "Ferrari" in the same sentence, but this car did a great job protecting the occupants. Hitting a utility pole at 160 MPH is a heck of a crash. The car split in two, but the passenger capsule remained intact, and the driver and passenger walked away.
That's just so wrong. People like me try to figure out how to own even an old Ferrari "someday," and this a-hole takes the crown jewel of the make and piles it up like some cheap pimp in his Escalade.
There is no justice.
And two years for 1.5 million stolen and wrecked? What kind of offer is that? Is he going to have to serve time in Scottland as well?
Release him to a drunken mob at Italian F1 fans.
I sure hope they have this guys passport. Sounds like a flight risk to me. I went to the Wikipedia sight. What a scum bag.
That was some automobile he wrecked. I am sure he will contend he was not driving. He may win. He may also go to jail for 11 years which will give him a whole new "perspective" on rear end crashes!
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