Marin County Prosecutors, just across the Bay from San Francisco, have charged a wealthy real estate developer with manslaughter and boating under the influence of alcohol in the tragic death of his 11-year-old son last September.
Javier Burillo Azcarraga, 58, from one of the wealthiest families in Mexico, was driving his 33-foot Targa Protector (pictured above) near Angel Island in San Francisco Bay when his 11-year-old son and a 27-year-old son were thrown out of the boat. Prosecutors say that in his effort to retrieve them, Burillo injured the older son and killed the younger one.
Burillo is scheduled to be arraigned in Marin County Superior Court on July 17 on charges of vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence, operating a boat under the influence of alcohol, and child endangerment. He has been free on $1 million bail since the Tiburon police arrested him last September.
His attorney said “Mr. Burillo is innocent of any crime here. This was a pure accident. Surely, the Marin District Attorney’s Office has better things to do with county resources than trying to turn a tragic accident into something more than that.”
Prosecutors do not know why Burillo’s two sons fell out of the twin-outboard boat about 7 p.m. on a Sunday. Burillo pulled the older son on board first, and then retrieved the younger one. The boat hit them both during the retrieval process.
Burillo took the boys back to the Corinthian Yacht Club in Tiburon, where he kept it. The younger son was pronounced dead at the dock there. The older boy was taken to a hospital with leg injuries.
Burillo had left the yacht club by the time police arrived. They found him at his home in Belvedere, next to Tiburon, and gave him a blood test for alcohol consumption. They then booked him on the same charges that the county prosecutor cited last week.
Burillo’s attorney said the boy’s death was caused by design defects that failed to protect him from the boat’s props.
The younger boy’s mother has filed for divorce and changed her name. Burillo’s family owns the Mexican media conglomerate Televisa. The divorce papers said Burillo had a nontaxable income of $176,000 a month from family sources. Read more:
https://www.marinij.com/2020/06/12/belvedere-man-charged-in-boating-death-of-son-11/
