A Sacramento jury convicted Richard Lee Newman of second-degree murder in the DUI crash that killed Nathan Thomas.

The murder count rests on a Watson advisement, the formal warning California gives a driver after a DUI conviction that killing someone later can be charged as murder. Newman had that warning, and a prior DUI, when he ran a red light with a blood-alcohol level of 0.21%, and the jury convicted him. Judge Steve White still has to impose the term on Nov. 20.

A Sacramento County jury on Friday, Oct. 16, 2026, convicted Richard Lee Newman of second-degree murder in the death of Nathan Thomas, the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office said in a release dated Monday. The Sacramento Bee reported the verdict Tuesday and gave Newman's middle name as Lee. The district attorney's release, KCRA and FOX40 used Richard Newman. Deputy District Attorney Toni Gonzalez of the Major Crimes Unit prosecuted the case, the office said. Sentencing is set for Nov. 20, 2026, at 1:30 p.m. in Department 16A before Judge Steve White. The office said the maximum is 15 years to life. The Bee reported the same judge, the same date and the same maximum, and did not include the time or the department number.

The outlets do not agree on his age. Sacramento police, in a September 2025 release, identified him as 33. KCRA's Tuesday story said he was then 33, and FOX40 also reported 33. The Bee reported he is 34. Thirty-three at the time of the crash and 34 a year later can both be true if he had a birthday in between. This story does not pick one age. FOX40 reported Thomas was 50. The district attorney's release did not give Thomas's age.

The crash was just after 11:50 p.m. on Aug. 21, 2025, in the area of 9th Street and T Street, near Southside Park, Sacramento police and KCRA reported. The district attorney's office said Thomas was driving through a green light when Newman ran a red light at 55 mph and struck Thomas's vehicle in the middle of the intersection. The collision pushed Thomas's car onto a curb and into a traffic-light pole, the office said. Thomas was taken to a hospital with a traumatic brain injury and multiple facial fractures and died of those injuries on Sept. 11, 2025. Newman's blood-alcohol content was 0.21% at the time of the collision, the office said. KCRA, FOX40 and the Bee reported the same level.

What made the charge murder, rather than a lesser vehicular count, is a warning he had already been given. The district attorney's office said Newman had a prior DUI conviction and had completed a victim impact panel offered by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, where he received a Watson advisement: that driving under the influence is extremely dangerous to human life and might lead to a murder charge if someone is killed. The Bee described the same warning from a judge after the prior conviction. A Watson advisement is evidence prosecutors use to argue implied malice. It is not, by itself, the verdict. The verdict is what the jury returned Friday.

The booking timeline is earlier than the murder case. Sacramento police said Newman, who had minor injuries, was booked into the Sacramento County Main Jail on Aug. 23, 2025, on charges related to driving under the influence causing great bodily injury. On Sept. 15, after Thomas's death, police said Newman would be additionally booked on vehicular-manslaughter charges and that the coroner had not yet released the dead driver's name. The Bee reported Tuesday that Newman remains in custody at the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center near Elk Grove awaiting sentencing. The reports did not say whether he plans to appeal. Friday's verdict is the jury's finding on the murder count. The sentence is still ahead. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.