The mother accused of helping her son cover up his involvement in a fatal hit-and-run collision with a bicyclist on St. Paul’s Grand Avenue last fall no longer faces criminal charges in the case.
Prosecutors opted to dismiss the charges against Abbey Hegner as a means to help secure a guilty plea from her son, the Ramsey County attorney’s office announced Monday.
Dustin Hegner Royce pleaded guilty in June to one count of criminal vehicular homicide in the death of Jose Hernandez Solano after reaching a deal with prosecutors.
“(Before) Dustin Hegner Royce’s guilty plea … there were challenges to understanding the truth of what happened,” county attorney’s office spokesman Dennis Gerhardstein said in a written statement. “We believe that our consideration of dismissing the charges against (his) mother helped us get to the truth and secure accountability for Jose Hernandez Solano and our community.”
Abbey Hegner was charged with two felony counts of evading an offender for allegedly helping her son cover his tracks after he fatally struck Hernandez Solano. At the time early on Nov. 26, her son was driving her Hyundai Santa Fe as the 52-year-old Hernandez Solano was biking home from work as a dishwasher at the nearby Brasa restaurant.
Hegner Royce said during his plea hearing that the collision took place shortly after he hurried away from a “road-rage” incident and ran a red light at Grand Avenue and West Seventh Street.
After Hernandez Solano — who was wearing a helmet and had a safety light — was knocked off his bike and lay motionless in the street, Hegner Royce fled. He drove down West Seventh to Keenan’s Bar, where his mother was working as a bartender.
Hegner left her shift and followed her son in another vehicle as the two made their way to his workplace in South St. Paul, he said in testimony at his plea hearing.
Then he left his car there and drove away with his mother.
Police have yet to locate the vehicle, and investigators spent months building the case that was outlined in charges filed against Hegner Royce and his mother in March.
They were initially arrested in December but soon released.
At the time, Hegner denied any involvement in the incident and told officers she sold her Santa Fe four days before the crash to an “unknown Mexican or Somali male,” court documents say.
She also was reportedly overheard in a recorded jailhouse phone conversation telling someone that police didn’t have any evidence in the case, particularly the suspect’s vehicle.
Hegner Royce initially told officers he had no memory of being at a Holiday gas station near the crime scene that night, despite video footage placing him there, nor could he recall going to his mother’s workplace.
He admitted during his plea hearing that he lied.
Hegner Royce was sentenced to four years in prison on Aug. 15. Two days later, prosecutors dropped the charges against his mother.
Hegner’s attorney declined to comment Monday.
Hernandez Solano died after spending 12 days unconscious.
The native of Mexico came to the United States decades ago to support his family. Before getting the job at Brasa, he spent 18 years working at Christos in St. Paul’s Union Depot before the Greek restaurant closed.
An online fundraising campaign helped to return the body of the father and grandfather to Mexico for burial.