Jail, Probation Ordered in Fatal DUI Crash

A Menifee man who admitted guilt in a 2011 crash that killed a well known La Cresta man has been sentenced to one year in county jail followed by five years of probation.

Richard Michael Proger, 42, had pleaded guilty in April to committing felony DUI gross vehicular manslaughter in the July 6, 2011 death of 84-year-old Richard “Dick” Johnson. The crash, described as head-on by Murrieta police, occurred on Clinton Keith Road just south of Chantory Street as Johnson was heading home that evening to his La Cresta ranch.

Just more than two years from the date of Johnson’s death, Proger reported Monday morning for sentencing at Southwest Justice Center in French Valley. He was immediately booked into the nearby Southwest Detention Center, sheriff’s jail records show.

Other terms of Proger’s sentence include completing the county’s Residential Substance Abuse Treatment program while in custody, followed by mandatory attendance at five Alcoholics Anonymous meetings per week for one year upon his release, according to John Hall, spokesman for the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office.

Hall described the sentence as four years, suspended, meaning that if Proger does not fulfill all terms, he will be required to spend three more years in jail.

Proger had been out on $75,000 bond since his August 2011 arrest in the case.

Toxicology reports ordered by Murrieta police came back positive for illegal limits of alcohol as well as hydrocodone, as did blood samples taken the night of the crash, according to police.

Had a plea deal not been reached, Proger, a husband and father, could have faced up to 10 years prison, prosecutors said.

Several hundred people had turned out for Johnson’s memorial service, held in July 2011 at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Murrieta Stake on Las Brisas Road. He was remembered as a husband, father, grandfather, a businessman, a friend to many and about as “cowboy as one could get.”

On the anniversary of Johnson’s death, several of his family and friends held handmade signs along the stretch of Clinton Keith Road at which the fatal crash occurred. The signs had anti-DUI messages.

Editor's Note: Patch has requested a jail booking photo of Richard Michael Proger.