A San Mateo County judge unsealed key documents Wednesday that reveal startling details about the man accused of intentionally driving his Tesla off a cliff at Devil's Slide with his entire family in the car.
Dharmesh Patel pleaded not guilty to charges he tried to commit suicide and kill his wife and two children by driving his Tesla off a 300-foot cliff on Jan. 2. Miraculously, no one died in the crash.
At the time, his wife had told a paramedic her husband drove off deliberately, but the newly unsealed documents centering around search warrants shows she actually told others the same thing, including law enforcement officers.
A CHP officer reports the “confidential victim” confirmed by the district attorney’s office as the wife told him, “He drove off. He’s depressed. He’s a doctor. He said he was going to drive off the cliff. He drove off on purpose.”
Get a weekly recap of the latest San Francisco Bay Area housing news. Sign up for NBC Bay Area’s Housing Deconstructed newsletter.
The wife has avoided talking about the incident to investigators since then, but did say she didn’t want Patel charged with attempted murder.
District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said what she told law enforcement at the time will help prosecutors if she decides not to cooperate.
“It’s certainly important because we do believe what she said at the time, under the stress of the circumstances, is both reliable and truthful, but we are hoping she will come forward to see that justice is done,” said Wagstaffe.
The documents also say Patel told his wife he was depressed about the war and the future of his children.
But Patel has denied driving off the cliff on purpose and instead said he veered off the road to check for a possible flat tire, something Wagstaffe said doesn’t seem plausible to him.
“Without going into specifics, there is a video taken from the tunnel they came through that shows the vehicle that, I think, contradicts that statement,” he said.
Legal analyst Dean Johnson says he’d like to know if the Tesla had an interior video camera. He added the wife’s statements could be inadmissible as hearsay but the circumstances will probably make them viable evidence.
“They’re the kind of statements that you don’t really have the time or the state of mind to make them up,” he said. “So the court gives these great weight and, generally, these kinds of spontaneous admissions, especially to law enforcement, are reliable.”
The district attorney says videos will be made public and the wife is almost certainly going to be subpoenaed to testify at the preliminary hearing which is set to start on June 12.
