It’s been virtually a yr for the reason that 20-year-old grandson of a legendary surfboard shaper was killed whereas “automotive browsing” on an e-bike alongside Pacific Coast Freeway in Huntington Seashore.
Now, the younger man accused of towing Kolby Aipa whereas driving at speeds of greater than 50 mph faces a felony cost.
Brandon Scott Soleau, 21, of Huntington Seashore, has been charged with one felony rely of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence in Aipa’s dying, in response to the Orange County district legal professional’s workplace. He’s scheduled to be arraigned Thursday and faces as much as six years in jail if convicted as charged.
Aipa was the grandson of iconic shaper Ben Aipa, identified for pioneering surfboard kinds such because the sting and refining the design of the swallowtail within the Seventies.
Surfer Journal described the youthful Aipa as a “surf royalty inheritor,” noting that he had a promising surf profession himself, in addition to sponsorships from a number of surf clothes manufacturers.
In September, Aipa turned the youngest member of the Surfers’ Corridor of Fame when he was posthumously inducted and honored with a plaque subsequent to his grandfather’s handprints within the cement in entrance of Huntington Surf & Sport.
Aipa was fatally wounded on Aug. 2, 2025, after attending a film premiere through the U.S. Open of Browsing in Huntington Seashore.
At round 10:30 p.m. that night, eight passengers piled into Soleau’s 2015 Toyota Tacoma, together with three folks within the mattress of the truck, prosecutors mentioned.
Aipa was driving his e-bike alongside Soleau’s truck on a service highway parallel to PCH when he requested his pal if he may seize on and “automotive surf,” prosecutors allege. Soleau is accused of claiming sure.
Aipa, who was not carrying a helmet, then put his arm by the truck’s entrance passenger window and grabbed on, prosecutors mentioned. Below the California Car Code, it’s unlawful for anybody on an e-bike, bicycle, motorbike or curler skates to connect themselves to a different automobile on a highway.
A passenger filmed Aipa being towed whereas Soleau merged onto southbound PCH at round 50 mph, prosecutors mentioned. Shortly thereafter, Aipa misplaced management of his e-bike and crashed. He was taken to a hospital in important situation and died three days later from blunt head trauma.
“It is a stark reminder that each motion and each determination have a consequence, and on this occasion the worth of these selections was the lifetime of a 20-year-old man and that may be a value nobody ought to ever should pay,” O.C. Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer mentioned in an announcement Friday.
Aipa’s dying has been broadly mourned in Hawaii, the place his household is from, and in Huntington Seashore the place he lived.
“I used to be working arduous on this life, perpetuating my father’s legacy, pondering I had this surf legacy that I wanted to go on to my son and my son would run with it,” Kolby’s father, Duke Aipa, mentioned at his son’s Corridor of Fame induction ceremony. “That didn’t occur, however what did occur is that Kolby discovered a technique to come again full circle to the essential rules of affection and aloha.”
Aipa Surf, the board firm based by Kolby’s grandfather, shared an announcement following his dying saying that the younger surfer had “a manner with touching the lives of whoever he met.”
“His acts of kindness and caring was his present of Aloha to pals and strangers alike,” the corporate said. “To everybody that reads this … go his Aloha on.”
Occasions Neighborhood Information workers author Matt Szabo contributed to this report.
