The Nevada Board of Parole Commissioners denied parole for former Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Henry Ruggs on Thursday, nearly five years after Ruggs drove his Chevrolet Corvette at 156 miles per hour before slamming into the back of 23-year-old Tina Tintor's Toyota RAV4 at 3:39 in the morning on Rainbow Boulevard in Las Vegas on November 2, 2021.
Tintor's vehicle was propelled 571 feet and caught fire. She and her dog Max died from thermal injuries.
Ruggs, now 27, was the earliest he could be paroled as of August 5, 2026. All four commissioners, Sandy Schmitt, Lamicia Bailey, Eric Christiansen and Sue Fahami, voted to deny it.
The board cited two reasons in its denial order, Ruggs's removal from a community supervision program and the impact on "victim(s) and/or community."
He will be eligible for parole again on August 24, 2027, his mandatory release date, and can appear before the board three months beforehand, in approximately May 2027.
The board recommended he participate in victim empathy programming and refrain from misconduct until that date.
What Ruggs Said At The Hearing
The parole hearing itself had taken place on May 11, 2026, via video conference from prison.
Ruggs appeared on screen before commissioners in Las Vegas and read a statement that his attorneys and the board's stenographers have since described as genuine and consistent with the remorse he has expressed throughout his time in custody.
"Not a minute goes by where I don't think of the pain I caused her family, her friends and the Las Vegas community," Ruggs told the board. "I'm a religious person and pray for her family daily."
His attorney David Chesnoff addressed the commissioners directly, asking them to set aside Ruggs's celebrity status in evaluating his fitness for parole. "Sometimes being high-profile makes it more of a burden," Chesnoff said. "I would most respectfully ask everybody to treat Henry the way they would anybody that comes before them, except for the fact that I think he's tried to do as much as humanly possible to send a message that his behavior was unacceptable."
The board took the case under advisement and announced its decision on Thursday.
After the denial, Chesnoff and his co-counsel Richard Schonfeld issued a statement expressing disappointment while acknowledging the ongoing grief of Tintor's family.
They said there is "overwhelming evidence" that Ruggs has accepted full responsibility for his conduct and has been engaged in community outreach efforts related to DUI prevention, including completing educational programs while incarcerated.
He received a bachelor's degree in commerce and business administration from the University of Alabama while serving his sentence.
What Happened That Night
The events of November 2, 2021 have been documented in court records and police reports that formed the basis of Ruggs's eventual guilty plea.
He had been at TopGolf, a sports entertainment venue in Las Vegas, before getting into his Corvette Stingray.
Prosecutors established that his blood-alcohol level, measured within the required two-hour window after the crash, was 0.16 percent, twice Nevada's legal limit of 0.08.
He was traveling at speeds that reached 156 mph on Rainbow Boulevard before braking brought him to 127 mph at the moment of impact.
The Corvette struck the back of Tintor's Toyota RAV4 with enough force to propel her vehicle 571 feet. The car caught fire.
Tina Tintor, 23 years old, died. Her dog Max died. A coroner ruled in December 2021 that both died from thermal injuries, they died in the fire.
Ruggs's own girlfriend, who was a passenger in the Corvette, was also seriously injured. Ruggs himself was injured and taken to a hospital before being taken into custody.
The Las Vegas Raiders cut Ruggs the same day. He had been in his second NFL season, a first-round pick from the 2020 draft who had been one of the most celebrated speed prospects in recent memory, he ran a 4.27-second 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine. His career in professional football was over within hours of his first arrest.
The Sentence And The Time Since
Ruggs pleaded guilty in May 2023, more than 18 months after the crash, to one count of felony DUI resulting in death and one count of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter.
The court sentenced him to three to ten years in Nevada state prison. The three-year minimum established the earliest parole date: August 5, 2026.
In the years between his arrest and his conviction, and in the years since his sentencing, Ruggs has been described by his legal team and by officials who have evaluated him as someone engaged in the work that the correctional system asks of people in his situation, programs, education, the sustained demonstration of accountability that parole boards look for.
He earned the Alabama degree while incarcerated. He engaged in DUI prevention outreach. He expressed remorse consistently and publicly.
The parole board found it insufficient. The community supervision program removal, the specific reason beyond community impact that the board cited, refers to an unspecified issue that arose during Ruggs's time in custody. Details of what that removal involved have not been publicly disclosed.
Tina Tintor's family could not be reached for comment, per the Associated Press report on the decision. She was 23 years old.
She had a dog named Max. She was driving home at 3:39 in the morning when a man going 156 miles per hour hit her from behind and her car caught fire.
Ruggs will be eligible for parole again in August 2027.