The driving force who let a Southern California man “automobile surf” on aspect of his pickup truck has been charged almost a yr after his dying.
Huntington Seashore resident Brandon Scott Soleau, 21, is accused of letting 20-year-old rising surf star Kolby Aipa seize onto his car as he rode on an e-bike, reaching harmful speeds as they merged onto the Pacific Coast Freeway final August.
Aipa, not carrying a helmet, then misplaced management and fell from the bike. He died from blunt head trauma on Aug. 5, 2025, three days after the crash.
Aipa and eight passengers had been getting back from a film premiere in Huntington Seashore when the crash occurred.
The Orange County District Lawyer’s Workplace charged Soleau, who permitted Aipa to seize onto his 2015 Toyota Tacoma driving at about 50 miles per hour, with one felony depend of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence.
Prosecutors famous that it’s unlawful for any “particular person driving a motorbike, motorized bicycle, bicycle, coaster, curler skates, sled or toy car” to connect themselves to a car on a roadway.”
Soleau will likely be arraigned on July 23, 2026, on the Stephen Okay. Tamura West Justice Heart in Westminster.
“This tragedy price the lifetime of a younger man together with his whole future forward of him and can endlessly affect a younger man who should reside the remainder of his life understanding that he killed his pal,” Orange County District Lawyer Todd Spitzer mentioned.
“This can be a stark reminder that each motion and each resolution have a consequence, and on this occasion the worth of these choices was the lifetime of a 20-year-old man and that could be a value nobody ought to ever should pay,” he added.
Aipa is the grandson of legendary Hawaiian surfboard maker Ben Aipa. Ben made the surfboard that the “father of browsing,” Fred Hemmings, rode to victory within the World Browsing Championship in Puerto Rico.
“Because the founding father of AIPA, Ben’s imaginative and prescient lives on in each board that bears his title, painstakingly constructed to perpetuate his life’s work. Each is an genuine expertise of surf historical past, heritage, and innovation,” they wrote about Ben.
The corporate memorialized Kolby final yr.
“Kolby at all times had a manner with touching the lives of whoever he met. His acts of kindness and caring was his present of Aloha to pals and strangers alike,” they wrote in an Instagram publish. “To everybody that reads this… go his Aloha on. So, how Kolby handled you, deal with others in that very same manner…On this you’re persevering with his legacy of Aloha.”
Soleau faces a most sentence of six years in state jail if he’s convicted of his alleged crimes.
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