By PAUL ANDERSON
SANTA ANA — A 34-year-old man was sentenced Friday to 15 years to life in prison for an alcohol-fueled crash in La Habra that killed a 24- year-old man who was driving home from his girlfriend’s house.
Scott Seiji Hisaka was convicted Dec. 4 of second-degree murder for the Sept. 20, 2018, crash that killed Jacob Eddy Farrand.
“Losing my son, Jacob, in such a horrific manner was the most devastating thing in my life,” the victim’s mother, Nancy, said in a victim impact statement read in court Friday.
Farrand’s mother said she has been in therapy since her son’s death and remains fearful of not only getting behind the wheel, but frightened that any of her loved ones won’t be killed on the road.
“I never knew the human body was capable of producing tears to the point of dehydration,” she said.
She told Orange County Superior Court Judge Steven Bromberg in her statement that even normally joyful events such as her other son’s marriage couldn’t lift her out of her grief, explaining she felt “numb” during the ceremony.
“All I could think of was the son who couldn’t be there,” she said. “The pain is so huge no joy overcomes it.”
Her son had a reputation for being the “designated driver” for his circle of friends, she said. She recalled how he once drove down from La Habra to Hollywood to pick up a friend of a friend he had never met because she was too impaired to drive.
Farrand’s father, Donald Farrand, said, “I can still hear Jacob’s knocking on my door at 2 in the morning saying, `Dad, I’ve got to go pick up someone.’ My answer was always, `Be careful.’ But how can you be careful against a car going 70 mph through a red light?”
Donald Farrand recounted all of the efforts that have been done to lessen the number of DUI fatal crashes, but lamented how they continue.
“We have Ubers, we have rideshares,” he said. “The defendant had all kinds of support. But where were they when he was…
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