OAKLAND — A San Pablo resident was formally sentenced to six years in prison for killing a 60-year-old man in a wrong-way drunk driving collision, but not until after he heard from the victim’s family and offered them an apology.
“I am sorry. Words can’t even express how sorry I am. Day in and day out, I pray for God for forgiveness,” Erik Steverson said at his Oct. 6 sentencing hearing. “Not only did I pray to God for forgiveness, I prayed to the family to forgive me.”
Steverson, 36, pleaded no contest last September to a vehicular manslaughter charge for killing Sean O’Brien, an Emeryville resident, in Sept. 6, 2021. Police said at the time that at about 1 a.m., Steverson was driving the wrong way near the Interstate 80 and Interstate 580 eastbound interchange, and collided with O’Brien’s car. Steverson was injured, but still managed to flee the scene and run to a bike path, but police eventually located him.
“I’m a different person now. I am smarter. I’m much more mature than I am — than I was before,” Steverson said at the hearing. “I am really sorry.”
Two of O’Brien’s family members spoke at the hearing, remembering him as a nurse who was assisting his elderly parents at the time of his death. O’Brien worked a late shift and was headed home when he was killed, they said.
“Anybody that needed help, they would go to him and he was always there for them. He was a Buddhist and he believed in peaceful, you know, changes, and always worked hard during his whole lifetime,” O’Brien’s uncle, Stephen O’Brien, said at the hearing. “(Steverson) killed a human being and a really bright spot in the human race.”
Judge Rozlynn Silvaggio spoke to both sides of the tragedy before pronouncing sentencing, telling O’Brien’s loved ones she was sorry the court was unable ease their pain.
“But from the bottom of my heart, I wish you all peace and I hope that his memory is a blessing to you all as you move forward in this life,” Silvaggio said, before turning to Steverson.
“I hope that moving forward, as you do, that you find peace, that you find meaning, because you’re here on this earth still, and I hope that there can be healing,” she said.