Apple executive Diego Cardoso de Oliveira, 40, his wife, movie producer Matilde Ramos Pinto, 38, and their two young sons were heading to the San Francisco Zoo
Credit: Jessica Christian/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty
NEED TO KNOW
- In March 2024, a family of four waiting for the bus in San Francisco was struck and killed by an elderly woman driving a Mercedes SUV
- The two parents and their 20-month- and 2-month-old sons were on their way to the zoo to celebrate the couple’s anniversary
- Mary Fong Lau, 80, pleaded no contest to four felony counts vehicular manslaughter and is likely to avoid jail time when she is sentenced on March 20
A Northern California woman who pleaded no contest to hitting and killing a family of four will likely avoid jail, sparking outrage among the family’s loved ones.
Just after 12 p.m. on March 16, 2024, Apple executive Diego Cardoso de Oliveira, 40, and his wife, Matilde Ramos Pinto, 38, were on their way to the San Francisco Zoo with their 2-month and 20-month-old sons to celebrate their wedding anniversary when tragedy struck.
The family was waiting at a bus stop near Ulloa Street and Lenox Way in the city’s West Portal neighborhood when the 2014 Mercedes SUV driven on the wrong side of the road by Mary Fong Lau, then 78, careened onto a sidewalk and into the bus stop at 70 mph, striking all four, the San Francisco Police Department said in a release on March 18, 2024.
De Oliveira, an Apple executive, and the couple’s 20-month old son, were declared dead at the scene, the SFPD said in the release.
Ramos Pinto, a producer at Ridley Scott Associates — the company started by the British director known for blockbuster films such as Gladiator and Alien — was rushed to a local hospital where she died that same day.
Their 2-month-old son died four days later after being treated in the ICU.
Lau was arrested and charged with three counts of felony vehicular manslaughter, felony reckless driving causing bodily injury, and additional traffic violations, the SFPD said.
Initially, Lau, now 80, pleaded not guilty. On Feb. 13, 2026, she entered a plea of no contest to four felony counts of vehicular manslaughter, when a defendant accepts a conviction without officially admitting guilt, The New York Times reports.
In entering the no contest plea, she waived her right to a trial, leaving the judge to decide her sentence, local outlet KGO reported.
In February, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Bruce Chan then said he intended to sentence Lau to probation without jail time, according to The New York Times.
Lau, the judge said in Feb., the San Francisco Chronicle reports, “is going to spend the rest of her days living with the knowledge of the harm she has caused to others.”
Lau's attorney, Jim Geller, said that she was bringing lunch to her brother when "her car just took off,” KTVU reports.
The victims’ family and the community, as seen on social media, however, are livid that Lau will likely avoid prison time.
"The evidence in this case showed gross negligence,” Ramos Pinto’s brother, Luis Ramos Pinto, said, KGO reports. “No defense was presented in court. And you expect a sentence to be proportional to the gravity of the consequences of the crime. Regardless of the person's age. And you always hope that everyone is held equally accountable under the law.”
More than 13,000 people signed an online petition urging Chan to sentence Lau to prison.
Saying they are “heartbroken and deeply troubled” by the judge’s decision to accept Lau’s no contest felony pleas “over the objection of the San Francisco District Attorney” — and to indicate a likely sentence of just two years of probation — the family wrote in the petition, “We believe the Court should not have accepted a no contest plea in a case involving the loss of four lives, including two babies.”
“A no contest plea avoids a direct admission of guilt and allows the defendant to resolve the case without personally acknowledging responsibility in open court," the family wrote.
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Lau is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday, March 20.
Her attorney did not respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
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