Unlicensed Milwaukee hotel attendant gets 15 years in fatal accident
4 mins read

Unlicensed Milwaukee hotel attendant gets 15 years in fatal accident

play

An unlicensed former hotel valet will spend the next 15 years in prison for a fatal crash that claimed the life of a DoorDash driver.

Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Michelle A. Havas handed down the prison sentence for Marco A. Gomez on Friday. She also ordered him to serve 10 years of enhanced supervision upon his release.

Gomez, 23, of Milwaukee, admitted he was drunk when he took a rental car belonging to a guest at a downtown Milwaukee hotel on July 3.

He later ran a red light at a high rate of speed and crashed into another vehicle at North 11th Street and West Wisconsin Avenue, killing the other motorist early on July 4, according to a criminal complaint.

Gomez pleaded guilty in September to second-degree reckless homicide and homicide by intoxicated operation of a vehicle in the crash.

For the two convictions, he will serve two 15-year prison sentences concurrently, with credit for 114 days of time already served.

The medical examiner identified the person who died as Michael D. Starks, 29, of Brown Deer. Starks, also known as friends and family like R’eay Reignwas working as a DoorDash driver making a delivery at the time of the crash, according to a GoFundMe page.

Prosecutors said in court documents that Gomez has never held a Wisconsin driver’s license.

Other recent cases involving fatal crashes

  • A jury convicted Akol Riak in May of six felony charges, including two counts of second-degree reckless homicide, in connection with a Jan. 7 crash at West Brown Deer Road and North Servite Drive who killed Monique Stewart. Stewart was a passenger in a car with four other family members, including her mother and 8-year-old daughter, who were on their way to a family reunion. She was eight months pregnant at the time. Riak, 19, was sentenced to a total of 14 years in prison.
  • Father Diallo admitted kill a Muskego couple in an April 23 crash that occurred while he was trying to flee a sheriff’s deputy for crossing into the fog line on the road. Pursuit speed reached 70 mph. The chase ended at 27th Street and St. Paul Avenue, when Diallo collided with a Toyota Camry carrying John and Barbara Zablocki. Diallo, 24, pleaded guilty in August to two counts of first-degree reckless homicide. He was sentenced earlier this month to a prison term of 25 years.
  • In September, a jury found Frank Mosley21, guilty of reckless homicide charges stemming from a crash last year that killed Erin Mogenson. A Wauwatosa police officer attempted to pull over a BMW for a missing license plate around 10:40 a.m. on Nov. 2, 2023, on West Capitol Drive. The driver did not want to stop and a chase ensued. The pursuit ended when the BMW crashed into a Toyota driven by Mogenson at Capitol and North 100th Street. The 32-year-old Shorewood woman was two months pregnant. He is scheduled to be sentenced on November 21.

Reckless driving continues to be a problem in the Milwaukee area

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation estimates that approximately 3,000 people are injured by a reckless driver each year in the state; 91 people were killed in 2023.

At least 74 people have died in accidents on Milwaukee County roads 2024 through Oct. 20, the most up-to-date figure provided by the department on Thursday.

Milwaukee police have issued 3,400 speeding tickets so far this year, compared with 6,518 tickets in all of 2013, city traffic data show. Overall, about a third of the citations this year were issued to drivers who were stopped for going more than 30 km/h over the posted speed limit.