East las vegas raiders Receiver Henry Ruggs III pleaded guilty Wednesday to a 2021 drunk-driving crash that killed a Las Vegas woman and her dog.
Ruggs, 24, pleaded guilty in Clark County District Court to one count of DUI resulting in death and one count of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter. He faces three to 10 years in Nevada state prison. A judge set his sentencing for August 9. Until then, Liquor and Location will remain under house arrest with electronic monitoring equipment.
Ruggs, dressed in a dark suit, spoke softly and was asked to speak by Judge Jennifer Schwartz, addressing the court. When asked to acknowledge the details of the accident that resulted in Tina Tintor’s death, Ruggs replied, “Yes, Your Honor.”
District Attorney Steven B. Wolfson said in a statement that a charge of drunk driving is “the most serious charge allowed by law” when someone’s death results from the actions of a drunk driver. The allegation, the statement said, was based virtually entirely on blood results taken at the hospital.
Ruggs’ legal team had sought to suppress the results of the blood draw, arguing that there was insufficient probable cause for the judge to approve it. Wolfson’s statement said that if a judge had suppressed the blood draw, there was a “strong likelihood” that the DUI death charge would have been dismissed.
“I recognize that this result is not sufficient to punish Ruggs for the harm he caused to the Tintor family,” the statement said, “but there was a legitimate concern that a court would have to rely on the results of the blood draw.” would have been suppressed. We would have lost.” Felony DUI charge. We can’t take that chance. The resolution sends Ruggs to prison for up to 10 years on a felony DUI conviction and gives closure to the Tintor family.
Tintor’s mother, brother and several other family members were in the courtroom on Wednesday.
“Today, like every day, we remember Tina and Max, and how they were taken from us on that fateful night,” the Tintor family said in a statement released by their attorneys at Naqvi Injury Law. “No amount of punishment will ever bring Tina and Max back together, but we hope everyone learns from this preventable incident so that no other family suffers like ours. We appreciate the efforts of the District Attorney’s Office, and we look forward to putting this behind us so we can focus on honoring the memories of Tina and Max.”
Ruggs and his attorneys, David Chesnoff and Richard Schoenfeld, declined immediate comment and left the courthouse with a group of about nine people after a brief court appearance.
On November 2, 2021, according to police, Ruggs was driving intoxicated and reached a speed of 156 mph before crashing his Corvette Stingray into Tintor’s Toyota RAV4, sending it 571 feet. A blood draw about two hours after the accident showed that his blood alcohol level was 0.161 – more than twice the legal limit in Nevada.
The next day, Ruggs was released on $150,000 bond, which the Raiders forfeited, and has been confined to his home with alcohol and location electronic monitoring devices for the past year and a half. A court ruling last year allowed Ruggs to leave home confinement twice a week to work three hours a day at a training center in the Las Vegas Valley. Around the same time, the court allowed him to leave for California for a month for unspecified medical treatment.
Tintor, 23, and his dog Max died from thermal injuries, a coroner ruled in December 2021.
Last week, Ruggs waived his right to a preliminary hearing because of a plea deal in which one count of DUI causing substantial harm to his passenger was dropped, along with two counts of negligent driving. Ruggs’ girlfriend, Kiara Jenai Kilgo-Washington, was in the car and was also injured.
Ruggs, who played at Alabama, was the Raiders’ first draft pick after coming to Las Vegas. He was ranked 12th overall in 2020 and played 20 matches for the franchise.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
