“Your actions, in combination with some terrible luck, have resulted in two people losing their lives,” Care Court creator and lead judge Michael Begert told Troy McAlister in denying his request for diversion to drug court. “… I think the way forward, as I see it, is for you to face your community through the criminal justice system and take accountability.”
Begert wished McAlister luck and set a jury trial hearing for Nov. 25, 2025.
Ironically, McAlister got a similar send-off in 2020 after then San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin negotiated a plea deal to release him after five years in county jail awaiting trial for a 2015 robbery case. The transcript from that court appearance shows a cold, self-centered, and unapologetic McAlister.
“All right. Mr. McAllister, sir, I wish you the best of luck,” Judge Loretta Giorgi said after the plea deal was finalized.
“I’d like to get my ankle monitor off today,” McAlister replied.
“Oh, yes. I’m going to order your ankle monitor removed as well,” the judge said.
“I did like a lot of extra time, like maybe a year extra. So, what happens with that credit?” McAlister pushed. “Will they take it off my parole?”
“That you’ll have to ask the parole agent about,” the judge responded.
And with that, McAlister was a free man.
The details once again exposed an antisocial, drug-fueled, violent man hell-bent on menacing society despite having been given numerous chances to change his life.
Once freed, McAlister — who has committed over 100 felonies in multiple counties over a 30-year crime spree — went right back to his old ways. He was arrested for multiple felonies on June 28, Aug. 20, Oct. 15, Nov. 6, and Dec. 20, for which he served a combined 11 days in jail, all while wearing an ankle monitor and out on parole. The Dec. 20 arrest came just 11 days prior to the fatal crash that killed 27-year-old Hanako Abe and 60-year-old Elizabeth Platt, yet his parole wasn’t revoked, nor did Boudin file any new charges.
The details again exposed an antisocial, drug-fueled, violent man hell-bent on menacing society despite having been given numerous chances to change his life.
On Dec. 31, 2020, McAlister was high on methamphetamine when he crashed into another car and struck the two women in a crosswalk. McAlister fled the scene and hid in a nearby building, where police found and arrested him. Officers later discovered meth and a gun in the car. One day before the fatal crash, McAlister stole the vehicle from a woman he met on a dating app after brandishing a 9 mm pistol while they waited for food on their second date at Nation’s Giant Hamburgers in Daly City. Publicity from the case, and the release of McAlister’s prior arrests and life of crime, helped galvanize the successful recall of Boudin.
During the Oct. 28 hearing, public defender Scott Grant argued that McAlister was “an excellent candidate for diversion,” stating that at the young age he was first convicted, he “wasn’t afforded the opportunities this court gives.” Those opportunities are San Francisco’s lenient, ineffective, and broken drug and mental health diversion courts, which The Voice explored in a recent four-part investigative series.
Assistant District Attorney Edward Mario (standing in for the assigned assistant district attorney Kourtney Bell) argued that McAlister had multiple opportunities for drug treatment over the past 30 years. In fact, on Dec. 11, 2015, despite McAlister’s long and violent record, the Public Defender’s Office, then under Jeff Adachi, asked the court to release him to the Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Center just as the office, now under Mano Raju, did today. The District Attorney’s Office (then helmed by George Gascón) pointed out that McAlister was in possession of methamphetamine and committed a robbery — as well as battery on a police officer — all while out on parole.
Grant also told Judge Begert that if McAlister pleaded guilty to California Vehicle Code Section 23153 — a law considered a “wobbler” because it can be charged as either a misdemeanor or a felony depending on circumstances — he would be eligible for diversion. Mario countered that Grant’s was an “absurd reading of the code” because McAlister’s driving under the influence resulted in two deaths, rendering him ineligible under 23153. McAlister continues to be an unacceptable risk to public safety, Mario said, having shown gross reckless indifference to human life on the streets.
In the end, Begert, who received a “fail” from Stop Crime Action, sided with the prosecution. The McAlister case, which has received international coverage, is simply too high profile for Begert to make his usual lenient motion. Activists and victim advocates had also threatened to mount a recall campaign against Begert if he allowed McAlister to go to diversion rather than face a criminal trial. The courtroom was packed with prominent community members and supporters of Hanako Abe’s mother Hiroko Abe, who attended the hearing via Zoom from her home in Japan, including Mary Jung, Jade Tu, Caryl Ito, Yumi Nguyen, and award-winning journalist Dion Lim.