‘No remorse or apology.’ Details of beer pong and coverups in Clovis educator’s death

Rogelio Alvarez Maravilla went to a party where attendees were playing beer pong before he ran over Clovis Unified administrator Gavin Gladding in a hit-and-run fatal collision in September, according to a Fresno Superior Court document released this week.

Although it’s still unclear whether Alvarez Maravilla had been drinking at that party prior to running down the beloved Fort Washington Elementary vice principal, the latest documents provide a clearer window into the actions taken by the convicted 18-year-old and his friends.

During the early morning hours of Sept. 16, Alvarez Maravilla left the party at Sky Harbor in his pickup with his girlfriend, Fernanda Jackline Lopez.

They were headed south on Friant Road when the pickup struck Gladding, who was jogging, from behind shortly before 6 a.m., the document says.

The impact caused the pickup to veer into northbound lanes. Witnesses said the pickup then backed up and made a U turn, causing the truck’s headlights to “to sweep over the body of Mr. Gladding as he laid collapsed off the side of the roadway,” the document says.

But instead of stopping to render aid, Alvarez Maravilla and Lopez took off, the document says, leaving witnesses to call 911 and help Gladding, who suffered major head trauma and multiple injuries. He never regained consciousness before being pronounced dead at hospital.

The document, called a sentencing memorandum, was authored by Robert Romanacce, chief homicide prosecutor, in preparation of Alvarez Maravilla’s sentencing hearing, set for Monday, Nov. 26.

In the document, Romanacce reveals new information about the death and asks Judge James Kelley to sentence Alvarez Maravilla to four years in prison, the maximum penalty for felony hit-and-run causing death.

The new information includes a tipster who told the Clovis Police Department on Sept. 21 that Alvarez Maravilla was the driver of the truck that killed Gladding. When police told the tipster about a reward, the individual didn’t want the reward money and “only wanted to do what was right and remain anonymous,” the sentencing memorandum says.

Less than an hour after receiving information from the tipster, Alvarez Maravilla’s attorney, Eddie Ruiz, called the California Highway Patrol and said he would surrender Alvarez Maravilla to authorities. Ruiz also told the CHP they could find Alvarez Maravilla’s pickup at his parents home near Easton.

Gladding, 43, a vice principal at Fort Washington Elementary School, was training for a marathon when he was killed. He and his wife Susan have two children.

The California Highway Patrol said Alvarez Maravilla’s pickup broke its windshield and a side mirror after striking Gladding. When CHP officers recovered the truck from the his home, the pickup’s windshield and mirror had been replaced.

Court records say Alvarez Maravilla, 18, pleaded no contest on Oct. 24 to a felony charge of fleeing an accident that involves death and three misdemeanors: vehicular manslaughter, driving without a license and destroying evidence.

Lopez, 18, and another defendant, Moises Antonio Valdez Guerrero, 23, also have been arrested in connection with Gladding’s killing. A criminal complaint accuses them of felony accessory and a misdemeanor charge of destroying or concealing evidence. Lopez and Guerrero each face up to three years in prison if convicted.

While Alvarez Maravilla is in the Fresno County Jail awaiting sentencing, Lopez and Guerrero are free on $6,000 bail each until their next court hearing on Nov. 28.

The sentencing memorandum says Alvarez Maravilla faces up to four years in prison for the felony charge and one year behind bars for vehicular manslaughter. The other two charges each carry six-month terms, but typically those charges would run concurrent with the more serious charges, the memorandum says.

Alvarez Maravilla would have faced a more serious penalty if authorities could have proven he was drinking at the party before killing Gladding. But Alvarez Maravilla and Lopez deleted text messages and other data from their cell phones before CHP investigators got a warrant to retrieve the evidence, the memorandum says.

Still, data retrieved from the defendants’ cell phone gave investigators a snippet of what was going in the hours before Gladding was killed. The cell phone data also showed that Alvarez Maravilla, Lopez and Guerrero had apparently returned to the crime scene less than two hours after Gladding was struck and “actually stopped there two times.”

According to the sentencing memorandum, Lopez sent a text message to Alvarez Maravilla about a party at Sky Harbor during the late hours of Sept. 15.

“I’’ll wait for you to drink and stuff babe,” her text message says at 11:50 p.m. Less than a minute later, she sent another text message: “We’re playing beer pong.”

After Gladding was killed, Lopez sent another text message to her boyfriend Alvarez Maravilla around 6:30 a.m. Sept. 16, asking him if he was OK, according to the memorandum. Then later that night, Lopez sent other text messages, telling Alvarez Maravilla: “My mom said the first thing they’re gonna do is check the windshield place” and “The glass with the blood.”

The memorandum says Guerrero took Alvarez Maravilla’s pickup to a glass repair shop during the morning hours of Sept. 16 “where the repairs were paid for by Ms. Lopez.”

Romanacce says in his memorandum that a four year prison term is appropriate because Alvarez Maravilla “was able to see the victim” and left the scene without rendering aid. Alvarez Maravilla also “hurried to erase any evidence of the damage to his truck ... and disposed of incriminating evidence,” including phone records, the memorandum says.

Romanacce said Alvarez Maravilla’s acts after the fatal collision “were nothing short of self-serving decisions to avoid responsibility for the life he took. “ The prosecutor also said that to date “there is no evidence of any remorse or apology, sincere or otherwise, by the defendant.”

While in jail, Alvarez Maravilla and Lopez have kept in touch through telephone calls. In some jail telephone calls they talk about the unfairness of Alvarez Maravilla being in jail, the memorandum says.

But in one call, “the defendant discussed being at the party the night before the incident while Ms. Lopez responded that the defendant was ‘not’ at the party ... after which they both laugh,” the memorandum says.

This story was originally published November 20, 2018 at 2:41 PM.