Former Raider Henry Ruggs denied parole nearly 5 years after deadly car crash

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Ex-NFL player Henry Ruggs was denied parole nearly five years after killing a woman in a car crash in Las Vegas, the Nevada Board of Parole Commissioners ruled Thursday.

Ruggs, a former first-round draft pick and Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver, drove his sports car at speeds up to 156 mph (251 kph) in the city on Nov. 2, 2021, slamming into a vehicle that killed driver Tina Tintor and her dog, Max. Tintor was 23.

Prosecutors at the time said his blood-alcohol level taken within the required two hours after the crash was 0.16%, which is twice the legal limit for drivers in Nevada. Before the crash, he was at TopGolf, a sports entertainment venue in Las Vegas, according to prosecutors.

Ruggs pleaded guilty in May 2023 to felony DUI causing death and misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter. He was sentenced in August 2023 to a three- to 10-year prison sentence. The earliest he was eligible for parole was August 2026.

Ruggs will go before the parole board again three months before Aug. 24, 2027, his mandatory parole release date, according to Kathi Baker, executive director of the Nevada Board of Parole Commissioners.

“Mr. Ruggs, and our office, continue to feel the grief and loss suffered by Ms. Tintor’s family,” Ruggs’ attorneys David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld said in a Thursday statement, adding that they were disappointed by the parole board’s decision to deny parole.

The attorneys said there is “overwhelming evidence” of Ruggs’ accepting responsibility for his conduct and engaging in community outreach efforts related to DUI prevention, including completing educational programs while in custody.

Tintor's family could not be reached for comment.

During the May parole hearing, Ruggs said he took full responsibility for the actions that led to Tintor and her dog's death.

“Not a minute goes by where I don't think of the pain I caused her family, her friends and the Las Vegas community,” he said during the hearing, of which the AP obtained a copy.

He said he used his time in custody to educate young people and others about decision-making and the dangers of drinking and driving. He also said he met with Tintor's family to apologize.

“I know I can never alleviate the pain that I caused, but if released I plan to continue to do my work to educate young people on the dangers of reckless behavior and hopefully avoid future tragedies,” he said.

This story has been updated to correct the day that Henry Ruggs' parole was denied. It was on Thursday, not Friday.

FILE - Former Las Vegas Raiders player Henry Ruggs appears in court May 10, 2023, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

LONDON (AP) — Artist David Hockney, whose paintings of pools shimmering in the Los Angeles sunshine became icons of 20th-century art, died Thursday, his publicist said. He was 88.

Hockney was born in the north of England but lived much of his life in Southern California, making its sun-drenched suburban views a major motif.

Later in life he returned to Europe, finding renewed inspiration in the wooded hills of his native county of Yorkshire and the fields and trees of France’s Normandy region. He became one of the U.K.’s most treasured artists, his works selling for record prices at auction.

Historian Simon Schama said that “the popularity and durability of David Hockney’s art, through all his shape-shifts and restlessly inventive experiments, are really no mystery.”

“His work is admired — loved is not too strong a word — by the millions who, worldwide, flock to see it because it presupposes an expectation of pleasure,” Schama wrote in an essay accompanying a 2025 Hockney exhibition in Paris.

Hockney’s publicist, Erica Bolton, says he died a few weeks short of his 89th birthday.

With his trademark round glasses and bleached-blond hair, Hockney was a well-known figure in the swinging British and American art scenes of the 1960s, even before he reached the age of 30. His paintings were just as distinctive, many of them creating a dreamlike world of patterned light bouncing off water and windows, and human forms rendered in flattened, simplified shapes in matte acrylic paint.

“I’m excited every day,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 1979. “London has lots of dreary parts but I never find anything dreary in Los Angeles.”

Hockney was born July 9, 1937, in Bradford, a large industrial city whose chief export was woolen textiles. He spent his first two decades there before going to London’s Royal College of Art. He made an impact even before his graduation, and art dealer John Kasmin took him into his stable of artists in 1961.

FILE - Artist David Hockney after unveiling the bottle design for the 2014 vintage wine of Château Mouton Rothschild in London, Friday, Feb. 3, 2017. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, File)