Longtime Point Dume Resident Is Seriously Injured in Canyon Crash

• Son’s Paparazzo Trial Terminated As a Result

BY ANNE SOBLE

Longtime Malibu resident Denise Peak was seriously injured when her vehicle went over the side of Decker Edison Road on Saturday at 11:20 a.m.
According to Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station Traffic Sergeant Philip Brooks, for “an unknown reason...the vehicle drove off the road.” Brooks said that stretch of roadway “is so heavily marked with tire skid marks, it may be impossible to completely reconstruct the vehicle’s path.”
Brooks said that the lack of impact to vegetation on the face of the cliff appears to indicate that the vehicle was traveling at a high rate of speed and launched straight out into the air before it dropped to the canyon bottom.
Peak is the widow of surfing doyen and local community activist Dusty Peak who died last August. She reportedly suffered a broken leg and multiple contusions in the traffic collision.
Brooks said sheriff’s deputies at the scene were “unable to interview [Peak] because of her agitated state after the accident.”
Skylar Peak, the woman’s 25-year-old son, who is one of the defendants in the paparazzo case that was set to be heard by a jury on Monday at the Malibu Courthouse, asked the court for a delay so he could assist his mother.
Judge Larry Mira declared a mistrial the same day. Peak’s attorney Harland Braun said a judge has the discretion to take that action “if overwhelming cause makes it impossible for a defendant to give full attention to trial proceedings.”
Skylar Peak and fellow Point Dume resident John Hildebrand, 31, are accused of battering a paparazzo taking photos of actor Matthew McConaughey while he was surfing at one of the Riviera private beaches in June 2008.
The jury was slated to hear opening statements on the allegations that Peak and Hildebrand threw Richid Altmbareckouhammou into the ocean, seriously injuring him and damaging his photographic equipment, during the videotaped melee that ensued.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney has made the high profile case a priority replete with multiple reschedulings since charges were filed in September 2008, even though misdemeanor cases with defendants who have no priors are often sent to hearing.
The pair are due back in Malibu Superior Court on June 4.