RSM Firefighter Gets 6 Months In Jail For Deadly Hit-And-Run

RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA, CA — An Orange County firefighter pleaded guilty Friday and was immediately sentenced to six months in jail for a fatal hit-and-run crash with a 24-year-old pedestrian in Dana Point.

Rancho Santa Margarita resident Jeffrey Richard Grasinger, 37, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of hit and run with permanent injury or death. He was indicted in October of 2023 with a felony count of hit and run with permanent injury or death, which carries a maximum punishment of four years in prison.

Grasinger was also placed on one year of informal probation and is expected to report to jail on Monday.

He pleaded guilty to killing 24-year-old Said Darinel Sanchez on Oct. 21, 2022. According to the Orange County District Attorney's office, Grasinger struck the victim at about 6:45 p.m. while the man was crossing Pacific Coast Highway.

The victim went airborne, spun through the air and fell head-first onto the pavement. Grasinger did not stop to render aid.

The sentence is lighter than another similar case, when a Long Beach Fire Department Captain was sentenced to a year in jail for a drunken hit and run that left a one person injured in 2011.

Sheriff's investigators tracked the vehicle to a home in Rancho Santa Margarita, where blood was found on the front of the vehicle, which sustained damage from the collision, prosecutors said.

City News Service contributed to this report.