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View Winners → Crime Oct 11, 2022
| Photo courtesy of Tony Hisgett/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
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A woman who allegedly killed a 70-year-old man by running him over with his own car in a Griffith Park parking lot and then fled the scene was charged Tuesday for a hit-and-run murder.
Sonia Sovereign, 31, is set to be arraigned Nov. 9 in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom on one count each of murder, hit-and-run resulting in death and driving or taking a vehicle without consent, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
The crash was reported as an assault with a deadly weapon at 2:30 p.m. Saturday in the 2400 block of Fern Dell Drive, Los Angeles Police Officer J. Chaves told City News Service.
“A dispute occurred prior to the accident happening,” LAPD Detective Daniel Ramirez told ABC7.
Valeriy Saakyan lost his footing and fell to the ground and was intentionally run over by his own light blue 2006 Lexus in the parking lot at the park’s Western Canyon Road, according to a police department statement. Paramedics took Saakyan to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Officers from the LAPD’s Hollywood Station were on patrol around 10 a.m. Sunday in the area of Lexington Avenue and Vine Street when they saw a vehicle with collision damage and a blue tarp over it, then discovered it was wanted in a felony hit-and-run, police said.
Sovereign was detained after she was seen getting out of the vehicle, and allegedly confessed to the crime during an interview with Ramirez, police said.
She remains jailed in lieu of $2 million bail, according to jail records.
