Judge may reject plea for 3 in Max Benson case tied to Guiding Hands death
The three El Dorado Hills school staffers indicted in the 2018 death of a 13-year-old student with autism spectrum disorder in their care will return to a Placerville courtroom in August after a judge postponed their scheduled sentencing hearing Monday and signaled he may reject their pleas in the teen’s death.
Teacher Kimberly Wohlwend, site administrator Cindy Keller, and principal Staranne Meyers of the now-closed Guiding Hands School pleaded no contest in May to criminal charges in the death of student Max Benson. The three had originally faced involuntary manslaughter charges and up to four years in state prison if convicted.
But a blistering victim impact statement from the Benson family attorney, Dustin Collier, prompted El Dorado Superior Court Judge Mark Ralphs to set a new sentencing date of Aug. 8. Collier said Guiding Hands School used the prone restraint for years on its students “with impunity.”
“In short, they tortured and abused the students in their care,” Collier said, his voice rising with emotion. Wohlwend and the staffers who fatally restrained Max served as the “judge, jury and executioner” of the 13-year-old’s death, Collier told the court, prompting sobs from Benson’s family before Ralphs called the attorneys to the bench for a prolonged sidebar.
Wohlwend, smiling at times from the courtroom well, was among the staffers who restrained Max face down for nearly two hours in November 2018 after the boy spat at another classmate, according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of Max’s family following his death.
Max lost consciousness and never regained it. Emergency responders were not called until nearly 30 minutes after he passed out. He was declared brain dead the next day at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento.
During the 95-minute restraint, Max urinated and vomited on himself, went into cardiac arrest, and ultimately lost consciousness, Collier said. By the time Wohlwend released the boy, he had begun to turn blue. Still, Collier said, “Max’s unimaginable suffering continued unabated.”
“By the time paramedics arrived,” Collier continued, “Max was no longer breathing at all.... They let him die in their hands.”
Ralphs did not preside over the case brought by an El Dorado County grand jury, and he had not yet reviewed any of the evidence in the long-delayed case, he told attorneys and a crowded courtroom. Nor had he heard preliminary hearing testimony or reviewed the “boxes and boxes of discovery in this case.”
“Based on what I’ve heard today, I’m not prepared to accept this plea agreement,” Ralphs concluded.
Attorneys will have the opportunity to argue to keep the plea pact intact at the August hearing. If Ralphs ultimately rejects the plea deal, the three staffers held responsible for Max’s death could face a new trial, the judge said.
California Department of Education officials in 2018 found that school staff used unreasonable and unnecessary force in restraining Max.
The school closed in January 2019, before prosecutors in the El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office filed involuntary manslaughter charges. Special needs students from across the greater Sacramento region attended the El Dorado Hills school, including children from Elk Grove Unified, Folsom Cordova Unified and Davis Joint Unified school districts.
Multiple local and state investigations into Guiding Hands School’s treatment of students led to its closure. Max’s death later prompted changes to California law that banned the use of prone restraint on students.
The case wended its way through the El Dorado courts for several years before the grand jury returned indictments in 2022.
This story was originally published June 16, 2025 at 4:49 PM.
.JPG)