Stephen Duane Chiara is headed back to state prison after violating the terms and conditions of his release.
Stephen Duane Chiara, 52 (Solano County Sheriff’s Office)
The ruling comes a week after he pleaded to vehicular manslaughter in the Solano County Superior Court for crashing a motorcycle he was driving. The 2019 crash on Interstate 80 in Fairfield resulted in a female passenger – Mary Ellen “Max” Hadley – dying.
Chiara showed no emotion when Judge William J. Pendergast, following some 90 minutes of listening to victim-impact statements, revoked his probation for a life sentence after conviction for a Fortuna woman’s 1991 murder.
Chiara (pronounced “KEY-are-uh”) will remain in custody until picked up by the state Division of Adult Parole Operations or officials from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Once returned to prison, he will face a hearing in front of the Board of Prison Terms.
Pleading on Jan. 16 to no contest to vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence, a misdemeanor, with all felony charges dismissed, Pendergast immediately found him guilty for the March 27 death of Hadley, 55, a self-employed investigator in Humboldt County.
During the sentencing hearing, Pendergast, alluding to the plea agreement, sentenced Chiara to one year in Solano County Jail, with credit for time served, and the judge reserved jurisdiction over restitution.
The judge also credited Chiara with 1,707 days in the parole violation case. He also said any financial assets belonging to Chiara eventually may be turned over to Hadley’s family.
Deputy Alternate Public Defender Jennifer Proctor represented Chiara, and Deputy District Attorney Ashley L. Ubois represented the County DA’s office.
In accord with Marsy’s Law, victim-impact statements were part of the sentencing, and, in this case, there were 20, most of them read by Hadley’s daughter, Desirae, a licensed private investigator.
In the first, via a remote video link, Chris Cook, a retired Humboldt County investigator, said she could hardly believe, when she heard the news of Hadley’s death, that Chiara had “destroyed” another life. She recalled that Hadley treated her clients with “deep compassion and the upmost respect,” characterized her as “a champion for the accused,” and urged Pendergast to impose the maximum sentence.
As Desirae read a statement from Mary Polston, mother of Mary Ellen Hadley, Polston said her only daughter was “full of life,” washing dishes at age 3, cooking from scratch at age 9 or 10, delivering newspapers at age 10, “never forgot anyone’s birthday,” cared for the homeless, was “full of positivity, hope and love of humanity,” was born “strong, smart and ready to work tirelessly to help others.”
“She always made everyone feel she saw you and you mattered,” Polston wrote, adding, “That man robbed my beautiful daughter of her life.”
In her own prepared statement, reading it while seated at the prosecutor’s table, Desirae Hadley, choking back tears, her eyes reddening, said, “As I stand here today, grappling with the profound loss inflicted by Stephen Chiara on my family, I find it impossible to articulate the soul-wrenching pain that has haunted me since the moment I received the devastating call.”
Mary Ellen “Max” Hadley, 55 (Courtesy photo/The Hadley family)
“A woman with a depth to her that few could comprehend, died alone, on the side of a freeway, flying countless yards from the wreck with injuries that would make you physically ill if I were to describe them to you today,” she continued, adding, “My mom was my PI partner at one point and I grew up helping her in the office. I was going by court and the jail with her in a carry pack as just a baby. She was a woman who stood for justice, endlessly fighting for people’s civil and human rights. She advocated for rehabilitation and redemption, finding goodness even in the darkest souls.”
Desirae Hadley’s daughter, Izabella “Nugget” Cruz, wrote, “Magah (a nickname), I miss you alot. I wish you were still here because it’s really hard with you not here. Me and mom need you in our lives. I know people say, ‘She’s always in your heart,’ but it is not the same.”
Family friend Peter Samuelwicz, seated at the prosecutor’s table, read the last statement and periodically choked up as he spoke, saying, “Max impacted this world in so many great and amazing ways, starting from the simple fact she was a good human being, a fair human being, an open-minded and forgiving human being, a mentor, a friend, a mom, a grandmom, a spokesperson for those who can’t easily speak for themselves, a dreamer of the future, some who always saw the good in those few did, her belief in redemption, and her love of life she had every single day on Earth.”
In his closing remarks, Pendergast called the Chiara case – bogged down by delays and the COVID-19 pandemic – complex, lengthy and regretted the circumstances.
However, he added, “It’s more important to do it right than to do it fast.”
The formal sentencing ended a nearly five-year criminal case that saw Chiara initially charged with vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated.
With the no-contest plea, Chiara, who, thus, avoided a pending three-week trial, did not admit guilt but essentially stated he would offer no defense to the stipulated charge. Pendergast dismissed several other charges: DUI causing injury; driving with a blood-alcohol content of .08 percent or more; and the unlicensed driving of a motorcycle.
During a 2020 preliminary hearing, Deputy Public Defender Pamela Boskin argued that there was “nothing that correlated” — namely the alleged smell of alcohol coming from Chiara’s clothing — to her client’s blood-alcohol content, which was tested and found to be greater than the .08 percent legal limit, at 0.13.
Boskin also raised doubts about the two blood samples taken by a phlebotomist contracted with the DA’s Office, suggesting a mistake may have been made.
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Additionally, she raised the possibility that another vehicle may have spooked Chiara at the time of the 8:45 p.m. crash, which occurred when he was driving a Harley-Davidson motorcycle east on Interstate 80 underneath the Green Valley Road overcrossing and crashed into a guard rail.
In response to Boskin’s statements, then-Deputy District Attorney Susan A. Rados, who was leading the prosecution, said the case “rests on whether there was another car involved” that contributed to the motorcycle crash in some way.
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There was “no evidence that another vehicle” may have been involved, she said, challenging Boskin, and alluded to statements made by a witness, Andrew Lind of Suisun City, whom Link interviewed after the crash.
A CHP report stated that “for unknown reasons, the driver was unable to maintain control of the motorcycle and both the driver and the female passenger were ejected from the motorcycle.”
According to the DA’s original charging documents, Chiara was alleged to have been under the influence of both alcohol and an unspecified drug at the time of the crash.
Chiara and Hadley were taken to the NorthBay Medical Center with major injuries.
A California Highway Patrol officer testified that Chiara suffered a compound fracture in the crash and interviewed him at the hospital, where, he said, he smelled alcohol on the defendant. That officer said Chiara told him that he was “traveling at freeway speed and someone cut him off.” Link also noted that Chiara said Hadley was his fiancee — a statement some of her relatives dispute.
In 1991, Chiara was arrested in connection with the death of a Fortuna woman, Mary Kesser, after he was found hiding with a sawed-off shotgun in a closet at a residence close to her home, according to a Eureka Times-Standard report. Chiara reportedly was hired by Kesser’s husband, who sought to kill her for insurance money.
After completing his prison term, Chiara was paroled to the Bay Area in July 2018, according to the CDCR.
He remains in the Stanton Correctional Facility in Fairfield for the parole violation and awaits transfer to state prison.
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