Boot camp offered in fatal DUI case

Bill Gang

Wednesday, Dec. 15, 1999 | 10:36 a.m.

An attempt by friends in two cars to carry on a conversation while traveling side by side at more than 80 mph in June ended in an accident that killed two people and injured four others.

On Tuesday, 24-year-old Johel Alamillo pleaded guilty to three counts each of felony drunken driving and reckless driving in a deal that will give him a chance to get his life back on track and avoid a mandatory prison stay.

"The ball is in his court," said Deputy District Attorney Gary Booker, who heads the DA's DUI team.

The deal calls for Alamillo to be sent to the prison's Boot Camp Program and offers a variety of incentives -- including probation -- if he successfully completes it, although he will still carry felony convictions on his record.

Alamillo will be sentenced next month on the reckless driving charges, but the DUI charges will be held in limbo until after Boot Camp.

If he completes the program, they will be dismissed. If he fails, he will be sentenced on them and could get as much as 24 to 60 years behind bars.

As part of the eventual probation, Alamillo will have to enroll in the DA's Serious Offender Program that requires house arrest, extensive counseling, alcohol testing and community service.

He also will have to wear a bracelet bearing the names of his victims as a reminder of what his reckless driving caused.

Alamillo already has signed a promissory note to repay the families of the victims for the funeral expenses.

"We are giving him an honorable way to resolve the case, and maybe he can get his life back on track without a prison record," Booker said.

In the early morning incident in June, Alamillo's Saturn was traveling at about 90 mph when it sideswiped his friend's Ford Explorer, sending it tumbling onto its roof, according to a Clark County grand jury indictment.

Two women, including the 17-year-old girlfriend of his brother, were killed in the incident on Carey Avenue east of Rancho Drive.

The teenager and the second victim, 21-year-old Anna Herrarte, were sitting beside the defendants' brother, Saul Alamillo, in the back seat of the newly purchased Ford.

Saul Alamillo and Gerardo Rodriguez, another passenger in the Ford, were seriously injured, resulting in two of the six felony drunken driving counts.

The incident became a three car collision when the Saturn hit the back of a pickup truck where a woman and her sleeping 7-year-old daughter were riding home in the bed after attending a drive-in movie.

Both were ejected and suffered serious but not life-threatening injuries, according to Deputy District Attorney Gary Booker.

Johel Alamillo and his passenger in the Saturn, Cesar Marmolejo, were uninjured.

Booker said the driver of the Ford, Luis Marmolejo, the cousin of Alamillo's passenger, has agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor DUI charge although his blood alcohol level of 0.08 percent was less than the legal limit of 0.10 to prove drunken driving.

Booker explained that the high speeds involved in the incident indicated that Luis Marmolejo, who was celebrating his birthday the night of the crash, was under the influence of alcohol.