A deal has allowed a Mexican immigrant who pleaded guilty to killing his girlfriend to be extradited this week instead of serving further jail time, according to the District Attorney’s office.
The SUN had reported in the Feb. 12 issue that Jose Escobar Herrera, 22, would be freed after serving an additional 10 months in jail for causing the death of 19-year-old Alcalde resident Natasha Mondragon. This report was based on information provided by the victim’s mother who was outraged with the plea deal Herrera had received for agreeing to plea guilty to vehicular homicide.
But Herrera got an even shorter sentence after entering the guilty plea at a hearing held Feb. 13 in state District Court in Santa Fe. Judge Stephen Pfeffer sentenced Herrera to six years in prison with all except 10 months suspended for time served. Herrera’s case stems from a car crash that occurred the night of April 13, 2008. Herrera and Mondragon, who were boyfriend and girlfriend at the time of her death, were traveling in separate vehicles south on State Road 68 in Velarde when Herrera’s car struck Mondragon’s, forcing it off the road into a ditch where she died, according to court documents. Tests later revealed that Herrera’s blood alcohol concentration was .11, over the legal limit of .08.
Assistant District Attorney Kathryn Thwaits said Herrera’s sentence was a condition of the plea agreement.
“After reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of the case, the plea was in the best interest of the state,” Thwaits said.
During the sentencing hearing, Pfeffer expressed his condolences to Mondragon’s family, but said there were issues with the case, including an initial investigation that both the prosecution and defense deemed faulty and that might have led a jury to acquit Herrera.
“I have to give credence to the state in its understanding of what it can or can’t prove,” Pfeffer said.
Thwaits said the first crash reconstruction was agreed to be erroneous by both the defense’s expert and the state’s second accident reconstructionist. That first reconstruction was done by Española Police officer Jeff B. Martinez, Española Public Safety Chief Julian Gonzales said. Martinez has been on administrative leave from the Department since August 2008 after a State Police raid on his house allegedly turned up pornographic materials picturing a juvenile boy. The second reconstruction was done by Dennis O’Brien, of Crashteams Santa Fe, Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s deputy James Lujan said.
If the case had gone to trial, whether Herrera or Mondragon was to blame for the crash would have been the issue debated by the state’s and the defense’s experts, Thwaits said.
Defense attorney Justin Lee would not comment for this story.
In a statement written by Mondragon’s mother, Mary Mondragon, but read by one of the victim’s sisters, Lori Mondragon, the family asked Pfeffer to overrule the plea bargain, calling it a “get out of jail free card.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement picked Herrera up at Rio Arriba County Jail Tuesday, jail staff said. He will be deported immediately and if caught entering the country again, will be sent to prison for five years and two months, Pfeffer said at the hearing.
“What really makes me angry is the signs that say ‘Crack down on DWI,’” Mondragon’s niece Lorena Roberts said after the sentencing hearing. “When it comes down to it, they don’t do anything.”