A roofing contractor fatally struck a pedestrian early Friday in Maplewood and smelled of alcohol when investigators caught up with him seven hours later at work in Sleepy Eye, Minn., according to a criminal complaint filed Monday.

Jose Ronald Hernandez Pineda, 46, of Maplewood, was charged in Ramsey County District Court with two counts of criminal vehicular homicide in connection with the crash that killed Abdul Bakr Jafar, a 31-year-old from St. Paul who was found lying in the middle of Maryland Avenue near McKnight Road about 4:30 a.m.

Jose Ronald Hernandez Pineda (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

A home’s surveillance video showed that Jafar was struck head-on by a dark-colored van while walking east in the middle of the westbound lane of Maryland Avenue, the complaint says. He was pronounced dead about 20 minutes later.

Hernandez Pineda remains at the Ramsey County jail ahead of a first court appearance on the charges, which allege driving a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene. An attorney for him is not listed in the court file.

A newspaper carrier told police he saw a dark-colored van driving toward him on Maryland Avenue about 4:30 a.m. He then saw a bag lying in the middle of the road and a body further down the road. The van sped west on Maryland toward McKnight.

The carrier turned around, caught up to the van and took photos, including of the back license plate. The van had ladders on top and reflective tape on the back.

The license plate was registered to a blue 2011 Chevrolet Express G3500 and is owned by a roofing company that operates out of a Maplewood home about 1.2 miles from the crash site.

An officer went to the home and saw a different truck in the driveway that registered to Hernandez Pineda’s wife. Driver vehicle services records also showed that Hernandez Pineda lived there.

Investigators contacted the woman, who said she and Hernandez Pineda are going through a divorce and do not live in the same house, the complaint says. She said she received a call in the morning from police, but disconnected it because she thought it was a scam.

Related Articles

Charlie Javice sentenced to 7 years in prison for fraudulent $175M sale of financial aid startup

Lawyer for suspect in Charlie Kirk killing wants more time to review ‘voluminous’ evidence

36-year-old woman dead after traffic accident in St. Paul

One year after a Lowertown artist’s slaying, a look at the shooter’s roundabout route

Former Customs officer from Minnetonka pleads guilty to possessing child pornography

She then called Hernandez Pineda to see if he was OK. He denied hitting anyone, but said he thought he may have hit a deer, the complaint says. She said he usually leaves the Maplewood home between 3 and 4 a.m.

Investigators received location data for Hernandez Pineda’s phone, which was about two hours southwest in Sleepy Eye. Once there, investigators saw a roofing crew working at a home and a Chevrolet Express G3500 van, which had heavy front-end damage, parked nearby.

Hernandez Pineda was arrested at the job site about 11:25 a.m. Officers smelled alcohol on his breath, and a preliminary breath test resulted in .06 BAC reading, the complaint says. The legal limit to drive in Minnesota is .08 BAC.

A foreman of a roofing company told police he asked Hernandez Pineda that morning about the front-end damage to the van and that he said “something about there being a lot of deer by his house,” the complaint states.

A sample of Hernandez Pineda’s blood was taken for testing; results are pending.

The Twins have dismissed long-time manager Rocco Baldelli after missing the playoffs for the fourth time in five years.

The decision comes the day after the Twins finished a disappointing 70-92 season in which they could never find offensive consistency and eventually sold off at the trade deadline, shipping away 10 major league players.

After the Twins collapsed down the stretch last season, president of baseball operations Derek Falvey expressed public support in the manager. At that time, the Twins let go of three hitting coaches and assistant bench coach Tony Diaz, reshaping the staff around Baldelli.

But he couldn’t survive yet another fourth-place finish, one in which the Twins lost at least 90 games for the first time since 2016.

Baldelli, 44, was hired after the 2018 season to take over for Paul Molitor. In seven seasons at the helm of the Twins, he led them to the postseason three times and finished 527-505 (.511). His 527 wins are second on the team’s all-time managerial win list behind just Tom Kelly and Ron Gardenhire.

The move kicks off what should be an offseason of change for the Twins’ front office, which has its work cut out for itself to rebuild an underperforming roster.

By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Charlie Javice, the founder of a startup company that sought to dramatically improve how students apply for financial aid, was sentenced Monday to more than seven years in prison for cheating JPMorgan Chase out of $175 million by greatly exaggerating how many students it served.

Related Articles

Iowa revokes license of schools superintendent arrested by ICE, saying he is in US illegally

Federal indictment charges 3 activists with alleged ‘doxing’ of ICE agent in Los Angeles

Truck driver accused of being in the US illegally pleads not guilty in Florida crash that killed 3

Regulators struggle to keep up with the fast-moving and complicated landscape of AI therapy apps

When food banks need bread, a network of 900 home bakers answers the call

Javice, 33, was sentenced in Manhattan federal court for her March conviction by Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, who said she committed “a large fraud” by duping the bank giant in the summer of 2021. She made false records that made it seem the company, called Frank, had over 4 million customers when it had fewer than 300,000, Hellerstein found.

The judge said Javice had assembled a “very powerful list” of her charitable acts, which included organizing soup kitchens for the homeless when she was 7 years old and designing career programs for formerly incarcerated women.

In court papers, defense lawyers noted that Javice has faced extraordinary public scrutiny, reputational destruction and professional exile, “making her a household name” in the same way Elizabeth Holmes became synonymous with her blood-testing company, Theranos.

Defense attorney Ronald Sullivan told Hellerstein that his client was very different from Holmes because what she created actually worked, unlike Holmes, “who did not have a real company” and whose product “in fact endangered patients.”

In seeking a 12-year prison sentence for Javice, prosecutors cited a 2022 text Javice sent to a colleague in which she called it “ridiculous” that Holmes got over 11 years in prison.

Hellerstein largely dismissed arguments that he should be lenient because the acquisition pitted “a 28-year-old versus 300 investment bankers from the largest bank in the world,” as Sullivan put it.

Still, the judge criticized the bank, saying “they have a lot to blame themselves” after failing to do adequate due diligence. He quickly added, though, that he was “punishing her conduct and not JPMorgan’s stupidity.”

Sullivan said the bank rushed its negotiations because it feared another bank would acquire Frank first.

A prosecutor, Micah Fergenson, though, said JPMorgan “didn’t get a functioning business” in exchange for its investment. “They acquired a crime scene.”

Fergenson said Javice was driven by greed when she saw that she could pocket $29 million from the sale of her company.

“Ms. Javice had it dangling in front of her and she lied to get it,” he said.

Given a chance to speak, Javice said she was “haunted that my failure has transformed something meaningful into something infamous.” She said she “made a choice that I will spend my entire life regretting.”

Javice, sometimes speaking through tears, apologized and sought forgiveness from “all the people touched or tarnished by my actions,” including JPMorgan shareholders, Frank employees and investors, along with her family.

Javice, who lives in Florida, has been free on $2 million bail since her 2023 arrest.

At trial, Javice, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, was convicted of conspiracy, bank fraud and wire fraud charges. Her lawyers had argued that JPMorgan went after Javice because it had buyer’s remorse.

In her mid-20s, Javice founded Frank, a company with software that promised to simplify the arduous process of filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, a complex government form used by students to apply for aid for college or graduate school.

Frank’s backers included venture capitalist Michael Eisenberg. The company said its offering, akin to online tax preparation software, could help students maximize financial aid while making the application process less painful.

The company promoted itself as a way for financially needy students to obtain more aid faster, in return for a few hundred dollars in fees. Javice appeared regularly on cable news programs to boost Frank’s profile, once appearing on Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list before JPMorgan bought the startup in 2021.

Javice was among a number of young tech executives who vaulted to fame with supposedly disruptive or transformative companies, only to see them collapse amid questions about whether they had engaged in puffery and fraud while dealing with investors.

In their pre-sentence submission, prosecutors wrote that they were requesting a lengthy prison sentence to send a message that fraud in the sale of startup companies is “no less blameworthy than other types of fraud and will be punished accordingly.”

Prosecutors added that the message was “desperately needed” because of “an alarming trend of founders and executives of small startup companies engaging in fraud, including making misrepresentations about their companies’ core products or services, in order to make their companies attractive targets for investors and/or buyers.”

Among Drake Lindsey’s 31 completions and three touchdown passes in the Gophers’ 31-28 win over Rutgers, his 9-yard TD toss to receiver Jalen Smith appeared on first glance to be among the least impressive plays on Saturday.

It was easy to overlook because it traveled only two yards in the air, with Smith doing most of the work, out-racing and out-muscling two Rutgers defensive backs to reach the pylon.

But the redshirt freshman quarterback pre-snap check set up Smith for success, and the play contributed to Lindsey being named Big Ten freshman of the week on Monday.

Lindsey completed 76% of his 41 passes for 324 yards, three scores and no interceptions. No other Gopher QB has had that many completions, attempts, yards and TDs without a pick since at least 1995.

On that specific play, Lindsey surveyed the defense on second-and-5 from Rutgers’ 9. From under center, he identified the cornerback in off coverage on Smith, the split receiver on the right side of the formation. Lindsey stepped back and wiggled his right hand toward Smith, then Lindsey put the fullback in motion and again briefly signaled to Smith before the ball was snapped.

Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck said it’s common for Lindsey to have two, sometimes three, options for plays once he goes to the line of scrimmage. That check to Smith was a third option that was talked about with offensive coordinator Greg Harbaugh on Friday — only one day before the Big Ten opener.

“A lot of times when you play a young player, they play not to lose and they don’t want screw it up,” Fleck told the Pioneer Press. “Drake is fearless. Drake knows he’s going to fail, he’s going to grow, he’s going to succeed, he’s going to have the process of growth. And he’s a process-driven kid. He has a lot of confidence in the people around him and they have a lot of confidence in him.”

Fleck said that type of at-the-line adjustment is atypical for such an inexperienced player; Lindsey was making only in his fourth collegiate start. “That’s a very mature thing to do,” Fleck said.

Smith, another redshirt freshman, also needed to be on the same page with Lindsey.

“It was just some communication between me and him,” Smith said Saturday. “He recognized that the corner was off and I think that is something about him that he does at a high level.”

Fleck has identified three things he believes make for a great quarterback: knowledge and ability to get an offense into the proper run; execution on third downs; and ability to win games in the two-minute drill.

Lindsey showed the last element in crunch time Saturday, trailing 28-24 with six minutes left in the fourth quarter.

On the first play, Lindsey escaped pressure, rolled right and found Javon Tracy for a 27-yard completion to jumpstart the drive. After the explosive play, the Gophers went into a higher tempo, with Lindsey doing an array of signals as if he was communicating in American Sign Language.

“Look at that man commanding this offense,” said Big Ten Network analyst Yogi Roth.

Lindsey spread the wealth all game, with 11 pass-catchers targeted and seven with at least three receptions apiece. On the final drive, he connected with four pass-catchers, including the game-winning touchdown to Tracy.

Related Articles

Gophers football: Popular Utah receiver Kai Meza de-commits from UMN

Coaching adjustments kickstart Gophers’ comeback win over Rutgers

Gophers football: Why were players and coaches barking after Rutgers win?

Gophers stake fourth-quarter comeback to beat Rutgers 31-28

Gophers lose one running back for the season, and starter for another week