OAKLAND - A man arrested in the hit-and-run death of a Moraga woman earlier this month has a history of drunken-driving arrests, court records show.
Lee Harbert, a 47-year-old man who has worked in the financial industry for many years, was arrested Thursday at his towering home in the Oakland hills, where the black Jaguar believed involved in the crash was garaged.
Booked on suspicion of felony hit and run, he bailed out of Contra Costa County Jail about midnight the same day on a $150,000 bond.
"We want to just ask him why he did it," said Roos Pal, whose mother-in-law, Gurdeep Kaur, was killed outside their home on Moraga Road.
Kaur, 56, was killed Jan. 11 as she walked across Moraga Road to her family's home.
Pal said the people of Moraga have been very kind to her family during the search for a suspect. She said she was pleased detectives were able to locate a suspect so quickly.
"With the evidence they had, they did it fast," she said.
Pal said she is leaving today to deliver Kaur's ashes to her son in the Punjab region of India.
Harbert could not be reached Friday. A message left at his San Francisco office was not returned, and no one answered his home phone.
Moraga police still are investigating the case, though Harbert is the only suspect, Chief Mark Ruppenthal said. He said investigators hope to deliver the case to the Contra Costa District Attorney's Office so charges can be filed sometime next week.
Police were able to identify the type of car involved in the fatal accident after a local Jaguar dealer examined debris left at the scene. Initially believing that the car was red, police had received more than 300 tips about red Jaguars with body damage.
The tip about Harbert's car came in a few days ago, Ruppenthal said. The car was a black Jaguar Vanden Plus, but detectives had enough evidence to get a search warrant for Harbert's house, Ruppenthal said.
"The damage on the vehicle is consistent with the impact," he said.
The Contra Costa County crime lab is holding the car for further analysis, Ruppenthal said.
Harbert, a former senior vice president at Bank of America, also worked at Fidelity Investments and, from 1998 until 2000, as director of intermediary business at Barclays Global Investors in San Francisco, according to a 2000 company newsletter.
It was unclear where he now works.
Harbert was convicted of reckless driving in 2000, according to the state Department of Motor Vehicles. He also was convicted twice of drunken driving in 2003, once in Michigan and once in Walnut Creek, DMV records show.
On Nov. 9, 2002, Walnut Creek police sent Harbert home in a cab after they arrested his wife on suspicion of driving under the influence, according to court documents. A few hours later, Harbert, allegedly still intoxicated, returned to the police station in a black Porsche, saying he wanted to pick up his wife, the report states.
Police arrested him as well.
Ruppenthal said Harbert made no statements to police when he was arrested.