Tesla Autopilot Crash Trial — Days 6 & 7

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Last Updated on: 24th July 2025, 03:42 am

Below are more updates on the Tesla Autopilot crash trial currently underway in Miami, Florida. They were, helpfully, sent to CleanTechnica by people taking notes in the courtroom. As before, it is definitely interesting to see some of the actual commentary from people associated with this case, including the driver himself and a Tesla technician.

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The first third-party wrongful death trial against Tesla began in Miami’s federal courthouse on Monday, July 14th.

On day 6 of the trial, the court heard from Michael Callafel, the Tesla technician who attempted to retrieve data from the crashed vehicle, as well as the driver of the Tesla, George McGee and Dr. Danielle Horn, one of Dillon Angulo’s doctors. On day 7, the court heard from more of Dillon’s medical team including his neurologist Dr. Kester Nedd and physical therapist Bill reader.

Today, the family of Dillon Angulo and Naima Benavides will take the stand leading up to Dillon’s testimony on Thursday.

Here are some of the key moments:

Michael Callafel, Tesla Service Technician/Field Technical Specialist (Day 6 AM) 

• Michael Callafel was asked to retrieve the Autopilot data from the crashed Tesla for the Florida Highway Patrol’s investigation (which he has previously claimed the data was corrupted), though he is not qualified to do this and had never done it before. When asked if it was outside of his expertise to facilitate a download of Autopilot data he said, “Yes. Yes.” (Day 6 AM, 6)
  • When asked if anyone in the service department is permitted to pull Autopilot logs, he responded “no.” (Day 6 AM, 16)
• Mr. Callafel signed an affidavit declaring he never received or powered up the Autopilot ECU when attempting to pull data from the vehicle, when asked about said affidavit he confirms that he did not write it at all, it was instead written by Tesla’s “legal team.” (Day 6 AM, 14)
  • He went on to say, “This was a long sometime ago. So I may have overlooked things in the affidavit. Or in the declaration and stuff. And when I reviewed it, you know — so it was — it was my faults. Like I didn’t look at it carefully enough. I didn’t review it thoroughly so that was my fault.” (Day 6 AM, 13)

George McGee, Driver of the Tesla (Day 6 AM) 

• When asked about getting too comfortable using Tesla’s Autopilot technology, Mr. McGee stated that he “Just got very comfortable with the car and the technology, quite frankly, because I thought it was doing what I had, you know, purchased it to do on assisting in my drive. And so I know I had gotten potentially, in my opinion, too comfortable, but I was very comfortable with the car as it went on and I continued to have good, successful drives.” (Day 6 AM, 47)
  • “My concept was it would assist me should I have a failure or should I missing something, should I make a mistake, that the car would also be able to help me. And in that case, I do feel like it failed me.””I believe it didn’t warn me of the car and the individuals and nor did it apply brakes.” (Day 6 AM, 56)
• When asked if the vehicle gave him a warning of anything upcoming, McGee said, “not that I can recall.” (Day 6 AM, 53)

Dr. Danielle Horn, Pain Management Doctor Treating Dillon Angulo (Day 6 PM) 

• Dr. Horn described her diagnoses for Dillon Angulo: “Chronic pelvic pain, chronic back pain, and cental sensitization or centralized pain.” (Day 6 PM, 37)
• Dr. Horn went on to describe Dillon’s pain, stating “I think right now Dillon is in a lot of pain. I think his quality of life is diminished by the pain based on everything he’s told me. And unfortunately, I think he’s been pretty refractory to a lot of the therapies that we’ve tried.” (Day 6 PM, 44)
  • “I think that when someone has a traumatic injury it’s very common that they might have physical injury, and then there’s also the emotional aspect of it. And when there is PTSD, chronic pain does tends to be worse. Patients are more likely to have long-lasting pain.” (Day 6 PM, 39)

Dr. Kester Nedd, Neurologist Who Evaluated Dillon Angulo (Day 7) 

• When asked about Dillon’s injuries, Dr. Nedd said he “had fractures of mandible, which is an important jaw muscle — jawbone. Quite significant that he needed surgical intervention.” “In addition, he had fractures in the pelvis. He had fractures of acetabula, the pubic bone, the joint — the sacroiliac joint… There was fracture of the actual sacrum and there was a displacement of the joint that occurred, which is a pretty traumatic experience.” (Day 7, 37)
  • “He’s what you call a walking wounded. If you look at him and think, oh, he’s okay. But once you start delving down into the details you realize there are issues.” (Day 7, 57)

Bill Reader, Dillon Angulo’s Physical Therapist (Day 7) 

• When asked if Dillon ever has days without pain, Mr. Reader responded “No. He’s always had some degree of pain. It gets better. But is it totally gone? No.” (Day 7, 76)
  • “At about two and a half years he stopped making as many significant gains with functional activities in time that he was without pain.” (Day 7, 74)
  • “So most pain that I have dealt with in my years of practice generally resolves within one to three or four years max. And afterward, it becomes more difficult to lose. I think he will keep some degree of it. What degree, I don’t know. Possibly forever.” (Day 7, 76)

Proceedings in Benavides v. Tesla began on Monday, July 14, 2025 at the Wilkie D. Ferguson, Jr. U.S. Courthouse in front of the Honorable Judge Beth Bloom. Dillon Angulo and the family of Naibel Benavides are represented by lead attorney Brett Schreiber alongside attorneys Adam Boumel and Todd Poses.