Man gets prison time in fatal hit-and-run

Monday, May 3, 2004 | 9:47 a.m.

A man who pleaded guilty to killing a pedestrian while driving under the influence of alcohol and cocaine told District Judge John McGroarty through an interpreter that it was God's will that he is still alive and the woman is dead.

"Finishing the life of a person is something I never had in mind," Leonel Ibarra-Herrera, 25, said in a letter read aloud to McGroarty through an interpreter. "I want everyone to know, on my behalf, that I wish I had been the person who had died that day, instead of her.

"If I'm alive, that's how God wanted it."

Ibarra-Herrera said he felt horrible for the August 2003 death of Delores Arana Lopez but asked McGroarty to give him the minimum sentence of two years because he said putting him in jail would not allow him to become the better person God wanted him to be.

"If I would know that by me being jailed the person who died would be brought back to life, I would gladly be here, knowing it was for something good," Ibarra-Herrera said through the interpreter. "But these things have no solution."

McGroarty's solution was to sentence Ibarra-Herrera to eight to 20 years in prison for causing substantial bodily harm while driving under the influence and for fleeing the scene. It was the maximum sentence he could have received under his plea bargain arrangement. Prosecutors had dropped involuntary manslaughter and reckless driving charges in exchange for Ibarra-Herrera's guilty plea.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Gary Booker and the victim's husband, Guadalupe Lopez, had asked McGroarty for the maximum sentence.

Ibarra-Herrera has two prior convictions for trafficking a controlled substance, Booker said, and had enough cocaine in his system at the time of the accident to indicate that he had very recently ingested the drug. Ibarra-Herrera was also illegally in the country, having been deported back to Mexico after the trafficking charges, authorities said.

Ibarra-Herrera drove onto the median and struck Lopez as she was legally crossing the street at Decatur Boulevard and Craig Road, Booker said. Ibarra-Herrera's car dragged or threw the woman 200 feet.

Ibarra-Herrera then kept driving about another quarter-mile before his car broke down from the accident and he escaped on foot, Booker said.

Lopez, the woman's husband, testified through an interpreter that Ibarra-Herrera had left him without a wife and their four children without a mother.

"What hurts me the most is that this man sees the torn body of my wife on the ground and he tried to escape," Guadalupe Lopez said. "He said my wife was trash, not knowing she was a child of God."