Thread: CO: Man Gets Jail For Helping Hit-And-Run Driver Escape

Man Gets Jail For Helping Hit-And-Run Driver Escape

Guadalupe Bastida Sentenced To 371 Days In Jail

Alan Gathright, 7NEWS Content Producer


UPDATED: 4:32 pm MDT July 18, 2011


DENVER -- A man was sentenced Monday to 371 days in jail for aiding the escape of a hit-and-run driver who killed a Denver nightclub valet, authorities said Monday.

Guadalupe Bastida, 48, was sentenced after earlier pleading guilty to one count of misdemeanor aiding escape, said Denver district attorney spokeswoman Lynn Kimbrough.

Bastida was accused of aiding the brief escape of Norma Vera-Nolasco, 32, who police said was behind the wheel of a truck that struck and killed 21-year-old Jose Medina as he was parking cars outside the Rockstar Lounge on Jan. 22. Prosecutors said Vera-Nolasco was drunk and didn't stop.

Vera-Nolasco was arrested days after the hit-and-run after police pulled her off a Mexico-bound jetliner at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport that had been taxiing for takeoff, police said.

Vera-Nolasco has pleaded guilty to felony vehicular homicide and faces up to 12 years in prison when she is sentenced in September, Kimbrough said.

Another accomplice, Eliu Montes-Garcia, 18, has pleaded guilty to accessory to a crime and awaits sentencing.

Yolanda Bastida-Nolasco, 44, Vera-Nolasco's sister, has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor aiding escape and awaits sentencing.

All four defendants in the case are illegal immigrants and face deportation, according to federal immigration authorities.

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Final accomplice in valet hit-and-run sentenced
By Jessica Fender
The Denver Post
Posted: 08/15/2011 01:30:05 PM MDTUpdated: 08/15/2011 04:41:11 PM MDT

The final accomplice in a hit-and-run that killed 21-year-old valet Jose Medina outside a Denver nightclub was sentenced today to a year in county jail for helping the driver flee authorities.

Yolanda Bastida-Nolasco, 44, gave her younger sister her passport and bought her airfare to Mexico following the January crash. She didn't know that sister Norma Vera-Nolasco had killed someone, according to both the defense and prosecution.

Authorities caught up with Bastida-Nolasco's sister in a taxiing plane at an Arizona airport moments before it took off for Mexico.

"We are here because she loved her sister. Her sister just said 'I need help. I'm in trouble,'" defense attorney R. Scott Reisch told the judge. "Her sister played her. She is a very simple woman who made a huge mistake."

Bastida-Nolasco asked for probation, saying she was a mother and that, had she known the severity of her sister's crime, she would have instead helped by calling a lawyer.

The year-long jail sentence was not enough for Medina's mother Linda Limon and his once fiancee Shannon Burtness, 19.

The young couple planned to marry in February.

"It has been seven months. But every day, it's not easier," Burtness said. "We've been together for six years. Me and him, we grew together as one. He was my one love."

She and Limon said that Bastida-Nolasco should have known that a serious crime had happened when her sister asked for help fleeing the country. They'd hoped she'd serve 18 months for the misdemeanor count of aiding the escape of Vera-Nolasco.

"If someone were to tell me, 'Sister, help me.' I would tell them, 'I'm sorry, I can't.' And I would call the cops myself," said Limon, who fought tears throughout her statement to the court. "I will never get to hold him again... I saw him lying in the road. That will never come out of my head."

Denver District Court Judge Martin Egelhoff said he balanced Bastida-Nolasco's

Aunts of Jose Medina thank to the metro taxi driver Max, center, on Wednesday. Max was one of the witnesses who provided information that led to the arrest of suspects in the deadly Jan. 22 hit-and-run accident on Lincoln Street near East Ninth Avenue that took the life of 21-year-old valet Jose Medina. February 2, 2011. Hyoung Chang/ The Denver Post (THE DENVER POST | )lack of a criminal record against the need to deter others from helping hide serious crimes.

Two others linked to the hit-and-run were sentenced last month.

Eliu Montes-Garcia, 28, who was in the truck when it killed Medina, got three years in state prison for being an accessory to the crime.

Guadalupe Bastida, 48, who helped hide the truck after the fact got a 545-day jail sentence.

Driver Vera-Nolasco, 31, has pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter and will be sentenced Sept. 19.

The four were in the country illegally, and face deportation after their sentences end, investigators said.

http://www.denverpost.com/recommended/ci_18685698