Drunk Driver Sentenced for Deaths of 2 Young Hollywood Execs

A Los Angeles judge sentenced a local man to 30 years to life on Friday for killing two Hollywood players-to-be almost two years ago, prosecutors said.

Jose Luis Vargas, 32, ran a red light at Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street, and broadsided a car, killing Samuel Robert Cassel and Rhiannon Meier at the scene, law enforcement officials said. Cassel and Meier, both 28, were driving home from dinner with friends and were struck around 1 a.m.

The couple was a pair of rising Hollywood producers:  Cassel worked as a vice president at Scott Rudin Productions and Meier was vice president for development at Red Wagon Studios.  After graduating from Stanford, Meier worked at Motion Picture Corporation of America, MGM, Blue Star Productions, and most recently at Red Wagon.  She was also a producer on “Daddy Day Care.”

“It sounds like she had a bright future ahead of her,” I said to one of her former colleagues last week when I heard about Vargas’s conviction.  He corrected me, “Very bright.”

After their deaths, the couple’s employers’ issued statements, saying:

“Sam was our friend and colleague, and we loved him enormously,” Rudin said. “It is impossible to get our heads around this tragedy, and our hearts go out to the families of Sam and Rhiannon.”

Wick and Fisher said: “Rhiannon filled every room with her huge smile, intelligence and enthusiasm, and you could already see the bright lights in her future. We are stunned by her loss, and our hearts go out to her family and friends, for whom she is clearly irreplaceable.”

Vargas, who had two misdemeanor DUIs from 1998 and 2004, had a blood alcohol level  three times the legal limit one hour after the collision, prosecutors said. Jurors deliberated for two hours before finding Vargas guilty of two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated.