Green Bay man pleads guilty in crash at Lombardi Avenue Kwik Trip that killed three people in 2020

Doug Schneider, Green Bay Press-Gazette
·2 min read
Dozens of flowers and mementos are left at a memorial made for the three victims killed in a two-vehicle crash on June 28, 2020, at Lombardi Avenue and Bart Starr Drive in Green Bay.

GREEN BAY - A Brown County judge will sentence Abdi Ahmed on Aug. 8 for causing a June 2020 crash near Lambeau Field that killed three people.

Judge John Zakowski on Monday found Ahmed, 24, guilty of three counts of second-degree reckless homicide in the June 28, 2020, crash that killed three people in a car. The car that was struck had been turning into a parking lot of the Kwik Trip on Lombardi Avenue, east of Lambeau Field.

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Ahmed pleaded guilty to the charges that he drove the 2019 Dodge Dart that slammed into a car that was carrying driver Jesse Saldana, 28, and passengers Sonia Gonzalez-Guillen, 27, and her mother, Sonia V. Gonzalez, 57. Saldana and Gonzalez-Guillen had been dating.

Conviction for second-degree reckless homicide carries a penalty of up to 25 years per count: 15 years in prison and 10 of probation. That means Ahmed could spend up to 45 years behind bars.

Ahmed, handcuffed and wearing orange county jail coveralls, told Zakowski in a strong voice that he understood what he was admitting to, and the sentence he could face.

Ahmed's vehicle was moving at 104 mph — in a 35-mph zone — barely one second before it slammed into Saldana's vehicle, according to a device in the vehicle that records speed and other data. The force of the collision caused the Saldana vehicle to overturn four to five times, witnesses at the scene sold officers.

Two of the people in Saldana's car were pronounced dead after being rushed to a local hospital; a third was declared dead at the crash scene.

The case had been scheduled to go to trial Monday. The court schedule was changed after Brown County District Attorney David Lasee and defense attorneys reached an agreement on what Ahmed would plead to.

Contact Doug Schneider at (920) 431-8333, or DSchneid@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @PGDougSchneider.

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Green Bay man pleads guilty in Lombardi Avenue crash that killed 3