Willis’ sentencing postponed until Sept. 23.
A professional surfer who was drunk when he crashed his friend’s car on a Del Mar street, killing the man, had his sentencing postponed for three weeks Tuesday, Sept. 1, to give his attorney more time to prepare for the hearing.
Milton Willis, 53, pleaded guilty June 18 to gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, with an allegation of great bodily injury in connection with the accident that killed 24-year-old Bradley Dillahunty of Laguna Niguel on June 6, 2008.
Willis faces a minimum of probation and a maximum punishment of 10 years in prison when he is sentenced Sept. 23 by Vista Judge Daniel Goldstein.
Willis, of Solana Beach, was seriously injured in the 1:40 a.m. crash in which he lost control of Dillahunty’s Toyota Avalon on Coast Boulevard while driving about 65 mph in a 25-mph zone, authorities said. The sedan hit a parked car and smashed into a palm tree.
Just before the accident, Dillahunty, who worked as a musician, had been at Jimmy O’s, a sports bar-restaurant on West 15th Street in Del Mar, sheriff’s officials said.
Authorities declined to say where Willis spent the hours leading up to
the crash.
Willis, who ran a North County surf school with his identical twin, Michael, is famed for plying some of the world’s largest waves and credited as a developer of “tow-in surfing,” in which a surfer is pulled onto a very large breaker by a cord attached to a personal watercraft or helicopter.
The Willis brothers also established the first surfing class in a U.S. public high school in 1972 and co-authored a book of philosophical essays inspired by their surfing careers.
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