Miranda Flores has spoken out after a Placer County jury ordered Sacramento Kings minority owner Phil Oates to pay $15.8 million for killing her husband in a motorcycle crash.
Flores, whose husband Patrick Seamus Mulderrig was 59 when he died last May in Granite Bay, told KCRA 3 she remains shattered nearly a year after the collision. “Now I feel like just a piece of a person,” she said. “I wake up and try my best to breathe and pretend like I am living, because I know he would want me to be okay.”
She continued, “I didn’t just lose my sweet Patrick that day. I lost the life we were supposed to have. I lost all of our todays — and every tomorrow that should have been ours.”
The civil verdict landed even though Placer County prosecutors never filed criminal charges against Oates, 76, over the May 2024 crash on Douglas Boulevard. Police had referred him to the district attorney for possible manslaughter charges and citation, but the office declined to pursue either.
Flores expressed gratitude toward the jury for delivering accountability where the criminal system did not. “I am so thankful to this jury for understanding and recognizing how remarkable my husband Patrick was and the depth of my loss,” she told KCRA 3. “Patrick impacted our families and my life every day. I hope Phil Oates now fully understands what his actions have cost our families.”
Her attorney, Roger Dreyer of Dreyer Babich Buccola Wood Campora LLP, framed the award as a rebuke of both Oates and the district attorney’s inaction. “This has always been a case about accountability and responsibility,” he said in a statement. “Patrick was a remarkable husband who loved and lived for his wife and others.”
Dreyer added that the unanimous verdict carried extra weight given the prosecution’s pass. “The fact that all 12 jurors reached the same conclusion speaks volumes,” he said. “We deeply appreciate this jury recognizing the extraordinary depth of Miranda’s loss and what Patrick meant to her.”
The attorney also said the district attorney’s office failed Flores by neither prosecuting nor citing Oates, but emphasized that the civil justice system was still able to hold him accountable.
According to a police report Flores obtained, Mulderrig was riding his motorcycle along Douglas Boulevard when Oates turned left in his Cadillac from a turn area. Oates told police he had seen the motorcycle changing lanes and accelerated, then realized it was traveling faster than anticipated. The two vehicles collided shortly after. Police determined Oates was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time.
Oates declined to comment when reached by The California Post after the verdict.