Wrong-way driver who was ‘no show’ at jail for another DUI wreck admits Richland crash

A wrong-way driver is facing more than a year in prison after a drunken Highway 240 crash late last year.

Richardo Arroyos, 25, pleaded guilty in Benton County Superior Court to vehicular assault while driving with a suspended license and without an ignition interlock.

He crashed going the wrong way on the Highway 240 causeway nearly a month after he was scheduled to serve a jail sentence for drunk driving.

Arroyos faces a year and three months to a year and eight months in prison. Prosecutors and defense attorneys plan to ask for a year and five months. He is set to be sentenced Oct. 23.

On the night of the crash, Arroyos was driving a Ford Explorer that belonged to his passenger Samantha Bounds, 21, of Benton City.

She told investigators she had been drinking at a Tri-City Americans hockey game at the Toyota Center in Kennewick and didn’t feel safe driving, so she asked Arroyos to drive.

It’s not clear where or how Arroyos started going the wrong way on the highway between Kennewick and Richland, but investigators said he was headed west in the eastbound lanes when he crashed into a Nissan Versa, court documents said.

That driver, Eduard Ballesteros Morales, 35, of Kennewick, suffered a dislocated knee and other injuries.

Arroyos and Bounds were not wearing seat belts and also were taken to the hospital, but police reports don’t include information about their injuries.

Washington State Patrol troopers reported finding empty alcohol bottles in the Explorer. Arroyos admitted he’d been drinking, but couldn’t remember how much.

At the time, he was supposed to be serving a five-month term after pleading guilty to hit-and-run, attempting to elude police and DUI.

He’d been ordered to report to jail on Nov. 12, 2024, but never showed up, court documents said.

Current jail records show he’s served that sentence since his December arrest.