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Elizabeth Merrill
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Elizabeth Merrill
ESPN Senior Writer
- Elizabeth Merrill is a senior writer for ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine. She previously wrote for The Kansas City Star and The Omaha World-Herald.
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Anthony Olivieri
Former Las Vegas Raiders receiver Henry Ruggs III unconditionally waived his right to a preliminary hearing on Tuesday and will plead guilty to one count of DUI resulting in death and one count of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter in a 2021 case in which he’s accused of killing a woman in a car crash.
According to a plea agreement presented Tuesday in Las Vegas justice court, Ruggs will serve three to 10 years in the Nevada state prison. His next court date is May 10, when he is expected to formally plead guilty.
The charges dropped as part of the plea deal were one count of DUI causing substantial harm regarding his passenger and two counts of reckless driving.
Police say the 24-year-old Ruggs was drunk and reached speeds of 156 mph in Las Vegas’ valley west of The Strip in the early morning hours of Nov. 2, 2021, when his Corvette Stingray hit Tina Tintor’s Toyota RAV4, propelling it 571 feet and setting it on fire. Tintor, 23, and her dog Max burned to death, a coroner ruled in December 2021.
According to authorities, Ruggs refused to take a field sobriety test, and a blood draw about two hours after the crash revealed his blood-alcohol level was 0.161 — more than twice the legal limit in Nevada. His girlfriend, Kiara Je’nai Kilgo-Washington, was in the car and also injured.
He was released on a $150,000 bond one day after the crash, and for the past year and a half has been on house arrest with alcohol and location electronic monitoring devices.
The Raiders quickly released Ruggs, a first-round draft pick out of Alabama in 2020, after the crash.
Last year, Ruggs was granted permission to leave home confinement twice a week to work out three hours a day at a training center in the Las Vegas Valley. Around that same time, the court allowed him to go to California for a month for unspecified medical treatment.
The preliminary hearing was rescheduled six times, the latest delay coming in March over which justice of the peace should handle the hearing.
If convicted, Ruggs had faced a minimum of two years and up to 50 years in prison.