A Chicago man who’s on affordable bail for three felonies, including two separate gun cases, killed a 12-year-old girl in a drunken-driving collision this week when his blood-alcohol level was more than five times the legal limit, prosecutors said Saturday. Four other people were injured in the crash.
“I was running away. I was running away because I was being shot at,” Daniel Regalado told a judge during a probable cause hearing Friday night. “This has been on-going…this isn’t fair. This isn’t fair at all.”
Prosecutors said Regalado, 27, was driving northbound on the 4900 block of South Cicero with two passengers when he crossed the median and plowed into an oncoming vehicle at 9:35 p.m. Wednesday, January 20. Five seconds before impact, his car was going 66 MPH in a 30 MPH zone, prosecutors said.
The collision killed Cire Robinson, a 12-year-old girl riding in the Cadillac Escalade he allegedly struck.
Regalado’s girlfriend, who was ejected from his Chevy Impala’s passenger seat, suffered a broken femur, facial fractures, and other injuries. She allegedly told police that Regalado was the driver and was responsible for the collision. She is in critical.
Regalado, his back seat passenger, and Robinson’s father are also hospitalized with injuries.
Prosecutors said Regalado’s blood-alcohol level was .457 when he arrived at Stroger Hospital after the crash.
Judge David Navarro said Regalado’s alleged intoxication level “is, I’ll say, the highest I have seen with an individual who is still alive.”
Regalado appeared before a different judge Friday night for a probable cause hearing.
Lying in a hospital bed with his head and neck braced, Regalado insisted, “they were chasing us!”
When the judge cautioned Regalado against speaking without an attorney present, he continued talking.
“I don’t need an attorney. People that need an attorney are guilty. I don’t need an attorney. Why would I need an attorney? For what?”
Prosecutors charged Regalado with reckless homicide with a motor vehicle, aggravated DUI causing death, and two counts of DUI.
Navarro set his bail at $500,000. But the judge also ordered Regalado held without bail for violating the terms of bond in three separate pending felony cases.
In one pending matter, Regalado is charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and reckless discharge of a firearm stemming from a July 2018 incident that prompted a SWAT stand-off in Oak Park.
A mugshot taken after his arrest in that case shows Regalado smiling widely to expose his fang-shaped teeth. Regalado was allowed to get out of jail by paying a $500 bond.
In January 2019, prosecutors charged him with felony manufacture-delivery of cannabis. A judge released him on his own recognizance in that case and for an additional $250 in the pending Oak Park gun case.
Seven months later, with both of those cases still pending, Regalado was again arrested and charged with being a felon in possession of another gun, court records show.
Judge Ramon Ocasio, who is overseeing his cases, allowed him to get out of jail by posting just $500 more.
In December 2015, prosecutors charged Regalado with five counts of attempted murder, unlawful use of a weapon by a felon, and possessing a defaced firearm following an incident in the 700 block of North Orleans in River North. A grand jury later returned a total of 17 felony counts against him, including five counts of attempted murder.
Cook County prosecutors dropped the entire case in March 2017.
Regalado is the third person to be charged with killing or shooting someone in Chicago this year while on bail for other serious felonies.
Previous reports of shootings and murders while on bail
- At least 32 people charged with murder in Chicago last year were free on bail at the time of the killings (January 4, 2021)
- We find another man accused of committing murder while on affordable bail in 2020 (January 9, 2021)
- #1: 16-year-old charged with shooting man during robbery while awaiting trial for felony (January 12, 2021)
- #2: Man fatally shot girlfriend while on electronic monitoring for November gun case, prosecutors say
