Derrick Thompson is now charged with 10 state felonies and three Federal charges in the deaths of 5 young women in Friday car crash [updated]

Tom Hauser of KSTP reports on Twitter that Thompson has been charged in the case.

According to records on file with the state court system, Derrick John Thompson has been charged with 10 counts of felony criminal vehicular homicide, two counts for each victim.

The full 10-page charging document can be found here. Here are the bail conditions he must meet to gain release: He has been offered bail in the amount of $1 million or bond with only the usual conditions.

Five counts each are for the crash itself. The additional five counts are for leaving the scene of the fatal crash. Thompson is said to have left the scene in almost comical fashion,

Later,

The county prosecutor opted against murder charges in the case. Those charges could be upgraded, depending on the results of drug tests performed on Thompson after the crash.

Thompson also faces additional Federal counts for the drugs and handgun found in the vehicle. Here were the contents found after a search of the rented Escalade:

He rented the vehicle only 24 minutes before the fatal crash. It seems likely that he was carrying all of these items on the grounds of the MSP airport.

In what I am told is a rare move, the U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Andy Luger announced additional charges against Thompson this afternoon.

Derrick John Thompson has been charged in a federal criminal complaint with illegal possession of fentanyl and a firearm following a deadly vehicle crash that killed five victims, announced U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger.

Luger updated the fentanyl pill count to 2,169. The Federal charging document can be found here. The Glock is a Model 27. A photo from the Federal document,

The Federal document also mentions finding marijuana in the car (p. 7, paragraph 18).

In an interesting detail in the Federal document (page 4, footnote 1), a witness says there was a second occupant of the Escalade, who fled along with Thompson. Another telling detail from the document (p. 5, paragraph 11),

According to Hennepin County jail records, Thompson remains in custody as of Thursday afternoon.

The story has been big news locally. The story has also made national news (Fox, NY Post) and international news (Daily Mail, The UK Independent).

The story also made news back in Santa Barbara County, CA, the scene of a similar incident involving the younger Thompson that left a hit-and-run victim with permanent injuries. From KEYT,

A Minnesota man who plead guilty in 2020 to injuring a woman while evading arrest in Montecito in 2018, is recovering after allegedly crashing into another vehicle while evading police in Minneapolis on Friday night resulting in the death of five people.

The station added,

Thompson, was sentenced to eight years after entering a guilty plea in 2020 after being arrested for those crimes in St. Paul, Minnesota after a multi-state manhunt.

According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Thompson was paroled on Jan. 19 of this year.

Doing the math, Thompson served less than three years of his eight-year sentence in California. Even factoring in credit for time served awaiting trial, he should have still been in a California prison on Friday night.

But he shouldn’t have been in California to begin with. The Star Tribune reports,

Thompson was not supposed to be in California the day of that hit-and-run — he never secured permission to travel there while on probation for another case in Minnesota.

The fault, apparently, lies with the California and Minnesota Departments of Corrections. When he was released in January, we was paroled back to Minnesota. It would appear that Mr. Thompson violated his parole conditions. Will California want him back?

Now that Minnesota has legalized marijuana, presumably the drug found in his rental car Friday night in Minneapolis will be of no consequence. Nor will the 17 lbs. of marijuana found in his wrecked rental car back in Montecito in 2018. Nor his separate marijuana-related convictions in Minnesota in 2015 and 2016.

Fox 9 reports that Thompson regained his drivers license in Minnesota in March. This, despite the felony hit-and-run conviction in California, his Minnesota convictions for driving after revocation (2018), driving after suspension (May and November 2014), and fleeing from police (2017, with motor vehicle, 2014, without).

Consulting state court records, his March 2023 license reinstatement appears to have occurred after he finally cleared up a series of traffic- and drug-related charges arising from a June 2018 traffic stop in Little Canada. But how he got his license restored is still a mystery. KARE 11 reports,

The Santa Barbara County (CA) District Attorney said Thompson’s driving privileges were revoked in California for that conviction, but MN DPS officials say a computer database showed his privileges were valid in all states. 

The next court appearance for Thompson in this latest case is scheduled for tomorrow at 1:30 pm. His first ever court appearance was more than a decade ago. The Star Tribune reports,

His criminal history dates back to at least 2013 when he was 17. He was found guilty of robbing a woman of her cell phone in downtown Minneapolis and received probation.

Derrick John Thompson (b. 1995) is the son of the controversial former state Rep. John Derrick Thompson (DFL-St. Paul) (b. 1971). The elder Thompson famously interfered with a traffic stop involving his daughter, Larraja Austin (b. 1997). The Daily Mail reported in April 2022,

John Thompson – a former Democrat who’s now an independent – was accused of brandishing his official business card in what St Paul cops suggested was an attempt to cower them.

He is also said to have screamed at officers following the traffic stop in St Paul on April 24, when his 26 year-old daughter Larraja Austin was pulled over. 

Thompson accused them of racism, and successfully managed to persuade the cops to let Austin drive off without being made to perform a sobriety test or arrested.

Officers taking part in a crackdown on bad driving pulled the beautician over after watching her swerve, and are said to have smelt weed in her car on doing so.

Indeed, the 2022 incident does not appear in Austin’s official courts record. Only two convictions for minor moving violations (both occurring in 2020) are listed under Austin’s name.