Former Pleasanton Cop Sentenced To 10 Years For DUI Conviction: Report

PLEASANTON, CA — A retired Pleasanton police officer received a 10-year prison sentence after he was convicted of gross vehicular manslaughter for a January 2022 drunk driving incident that killed a 27-year-old woman, Pleasanton Weekly reported.

In February, a jury found Theodore “Ted” Young, 64, guilty of driving under the influence causing injury and driving with a blood alcohol level of .08 or higher causing brain injury, with several enhancements, according to multiple reports. The jury did not find Young guilty of the charge of second-degree murder, a charge that the Tuolumne County District Attorney pursued due to a prior DUI conviction in 2017 in Sonora.

Prosecutors said that Young was driving alone on Jan. 18, 2022, when his pickup truck crossed a solid line on Highway 108 near Jamestown, and crashed into an oncoming vehicle driven by Rebekah Gall, 27, of Oakdale. Gall, who lived in Oakdale with her husband and dogs and worked at the Tuolumne County Social Services Department, died three days later.

Young later testified that he had drank six or seven beers that afternoon, according to The Union Democrat.

"I wholeheartedly believe in our system of justice," Deputy District Attorney Stephanie Novelli, who prosecuted the case, told Pleasanton Weekly. "This case was not about Mr. Young being a retired officer. However the fact that Mr. Young had experience responding to DUI scenes and training in DUIs makes it that much more egregious and unfathomable that he would make the selfish decisions that he did on Jan. 18, 2022."

Young was a police officer and sergeant in the Pleasanton Police Department from 1987 until 2016, according to Pleasanton Weekly. He also spent time in the department’s narcotics division, and as a Drug Abuse Resistance Education program educator in schools.