No prison for man whose Lake Street crash injured colorful counterculture figure who later died

A 28-year-old man received a four-month term Wednesday for being drunk when he slammed into another vehicle at freeway speeds on Lake Street in Minneapolis and caused a collision that severely injured a colorful Minneapolis counterculture character who died months later.

Eduardo Tomas Nieves of Minneapolis was sentenced in Hennepin County District Court after he was found guilty in a bench trial of criminal vehicular operation in connection with the crash on Dec. 31, 2022.

John “Fred” Case, 77, of Minneapolis was taken from the scene by emergency responders to HCMC, and he later died there on March 17, 2023.

Judge Michael Burns set aside a three-year term in favor of sentencing Nieves to 120 days in the workhouse and giving him the option of serving his time on electronic home monitoring. The sentence also includes three years’ probation.

According to the criminal complaint and Burns’ finding of guilt:

Police arrived at E. Lake Street and 45th Avenue S. and saw Case with head injuries and unconscious.

A witness said Nieves’ SUV appeared to be traveling at 60 miles per hour moments before hitting Case’s minivan and also described Nieves as driving at “freeway speeds” on a city street.

Case suffered numerous injuries from the crash, among them: trauma to his brain, a shattered spleen and numerous broken bones.

Burns explained in his verdict filing that Nieves was not charged with criminal vehicular homicide because “it is unclear from the record as to whether the victim died as a result of this accident or other issues. The court notes that [Nieves] is charged with criminal vehicular operation as a result of the injuries sustained by the victim, not based on his death.”

A Minnesota Star Tribune profile in April 2023 noted that Case’s own biography, as well as friends and relatives, described him as a juvenile delinquent, a car thief and a drug dealer in his youth.

As a hippie, he fully embraced a “drugs, sex and rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle.” His counterculture adventures and misadventures ranged from getting kicked out the Army, painting water towers across the Midwest, riding a motorcycle across Europe, living in Copenhagen and driving across the country with a collection of old brass beds to sell in San Francisco.

After he sobered up, he achieved a degree of respectability. His passion for going to concerts with a camera, talking his way backstage and hanging with the likes of the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead resulted in a book he co-authored and published in 2019: “When the Stones Came to Town: Rock ‘N’ Roll Photos from the 1970s.”