Thread: DUI Illegal Arrested, Convicted 9 TIMES since 2003

DUI illegal arrested, convicted 9 times since 2003
Authorities can't explain why alien who killed father of 5 still in U.S.

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Posted: April 21, 2007
7:15 p.m. Eastern



© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

When Isidro Pena Soto's SUV slammed into an oncoming pickup truck, after passing another car at 90 miles-per-hour, the illegal alien who had been arrested or convicted at least nine times since 2003 made Kent Boone the fifth fatality in two weeks along a dangerous stretch of Northern California highway.

The notorious two-lane roadway, known as "blood alley," runs through Napa, Solano, Sacramento and San Joaquin counties. It averaged more than 10 deaths a year during the five-year period ending in 2005.

Pena, 26, was driving without a license while under the influence of drugs and alcohol. California Highway Patrol officers found two pounds of methamphetamine in his vehicle and more at his home. It was not his first brush with U.S. law, and that's what Boone's survivors find so hard to understand.

"He needs to be in prison, there's no way they're going to be able to deport him and keep him out of our country," Boone's widow, Regina Sorisio, told the Oroville Mercury Register.

(Story continues below)


Boone, a 33-year-old pipe fitter and father of five, was killed on March 31 as he drove to work.

Pena was hospitalized following the accident but arrested when he was released from doctors' care. This week he pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder.

"It's been quite challenging getting any information on anything," April Godin, Boone's former wife and mother of two of his children, told the Contra Costa Times. "It's just all of the loopholes and lack of information."

The information that is coming out now makes Boone's family and law enforcement officials wonder why Pena had not been deported before.

Pena has been convicted six times of driving without a license. In 2003 and 2005, he was convicted for DUI in Contra Costa County – and for a felony narcotics charge in the same county in 2005. That same year, he was convicted of a DUI in neighboring Solano County – the county where he killed Boone last month.

According to the Contra Costa Times, court records do not show the circumstances of his release from custody on those charges.

A spokeswoman with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency said no one from any of the law enforcement agencies or courts that had handled Pena's offenses in the past had ever contacted her agency.

"Cases like this certainly underscore why we want to encourage local law enforcement agencies to tell us when they encounter foreign nationals with multiple prior convictions for crimes that certainly present a potential threat to public safety," said ICE's Virginia Kice.

"The only time [immigration status] is a relevant issue is if someone is charged with a crime and we incarcerate them," said Concord police Lt. David Chilimidos.

"We actually treat everybody like they were here legally," said Richmond police Capt. Alec Griffin. "We don't make contacts with ICE just in the course of normal business."

In Richmond, with its large immigrant population, local police do not participate with ICE in roundups of suspected illegals. The city terminated daylight traffic checkpoints aimed at stopping street crimes, Griffin said, because immigrants feared they were being targeted.

For whatever reason, Pena's multiple trips through the justice system never resulted in him being identified as an illegal alien who might "present a potential threat to public safety."

"It doesn't seem like it would be hard to put a red flag on there," Godin said. "There's so many questions I have. ... Why isn't anyone giving us information?"

There is now an immigration hold on Pena, who is being held without bail and will be turned over to immigration authorities for deportation if and when he is released from custody.

WND has reported on the growing list of illegal immigrants who have not only ignored U.S. immigration laws, but state laws against drinking and driving as well, killing innocents on the highways in the process, including:


Alfredo Ramos

Alfredo Ramos: A Mexican national in the U.S. illegally, Ramos was convicted of driving while intoxicated last year, but that didn't keep him from being behind the wheel after a night of drinking last weekend – and now two teenage girls are dead because of it. According to police, Ramos, 22, slammed the 1998 Mitsubishi he was driving into the rear of a 1994 Plymouth driven by Allison Kunhardt, 17, Friday night in Virginia Beach, Va. Kunhardt and her best friend Tessa Tranchant, 16, were stopped at a traffic light when they were hit from behind. Although both wore seat belts, both died – one at the scene and one after arriving at the hospital. Ramos, charged with manslaughter for the two deaths, was convicted last year of public drunkenness in Virginia Beach and driving under the influence in Chesapeake.


Carlos Prieto

Carlos Prieto: Suspected illegal alien from Mexico was held in the Salt Lake County jail after running a red light and broadsiding a family of six, killing three, on Christmas Eve 2006. The charging documents say his blood-alcohol level was above the legal limit. The Ceran family, active in local theater and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, were returning home after attending a performance of Dicken's "The Christmas Carol," which featured several family members, when their car was struck by a truck driven by Carlos Prieto. The crash killed Cheryl Ceran, 47, and two of her children, 15-year-old Ian and 7-year-old Julinna. Cheryl Ceran's husband, Gary Ceran, 45, and their 19-year-old daughter, Clarissa, and 12-year-old son, Caleb, were injured.


Marine Cpl. Brian Mathews

Eduardo Raul Morales-Soriano: When this illegal alien, working as a landscaper in Maryland, killed Marine Cpl. Brian Mathews, 21, and his date, Jennifer Bower, 24, on Thanksgiving night, 2006, it wasn't his first accident where alcohol was apparently involved. Nine months before, he was issued four citations and sent home with a friend after a single-car accident when he refused a Breathalyzer test. A policeman's error resulted in Morales-Soriano – who took advantage of North Carolina's easy rules to obtain his driver's license in 2004 – getting his license returned. On the night he killed the young couple, police say his blood alcohol level was measured at .32 – four times the legal level in Maryland for intoxication. Mathews had served 8 months in Iraq and completed another tour of duty in the Pacific.


Chief of Police Ernest V. Mendoza

Guillermo Paniagua: This 29-year-old Mexican construction worker, living in the U.S. illegally, already had 4 DUI arrests when he slammed his pickup, head-on, into the car driven by Needville, Texas, Independent School District Chief of Police Ernie Mendoza on Jan. 19, 2007. Mendoza died instantly and Paniagua, suffering only cuts and bruises, fled the accident scene into the night. The police officer left behind a wife and four children. Paniagua now he faces first-degree felony murder charges, and failure to stop and render aid.


Gustavo Reyes Garcia

Gustavo Reyes Garcia: Fourteen previous arrests – including four DUIs – didn't keep illegal alien Gustavo Reyes Garcia off the road June 8, 2006, when he slammed his SUV into a sedan driven by Sean and Donna Wilson of Mt. Juliet, Tenn., killing them both. Garcia short-circuited the criminal trial for two counts of vehicular homicide while intoxicated and evading arrest by pleading guilty on April 9, 2007. "It was the case that brought to our attention ... the flaw in the system," Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall said.


Bob Clark (courtesy Warner Home Video)

Hector Velazquez-Nava: This 24-year-old Mexican national living in Los Angeles reportedly had a 0.24 percent blood-alcohol level – three times the state level to be considered drunk – about the time he drove his SUV head on into a car driven by 'A Christmas Story' director Bob Clark, killing him and his 22-year-old son at the scene. Velazquez-Nava was arrested for investigation of driving under the influence of alcohol and vehicular manslaughter for the April 4, 2007, accident. According to reports, Velazquez-Nava didn't have any previous deportations but had been convicted in 2004 in Los Angeles of soliciting a prostitute, for which he received 24 months probation and a $1,500 fine after pleading no contest.


Deputy Loren Lilly

Joel Perea and Maurilio Herrera: Police took this death hard – it was one of their own. Deputy Loren Lilly, who had been with the Cobb County Sheriff's Office for 18 years, was pronounced dead at the scene after his Honda Accord flipped several times after being struck by a Ford Taurus driven by Perea. "Obviously, being in law enforcement, none of us wants to roll up and see one of our fellow officers or deputies on the scene as well," said one cop. 27-year-old Perea and his passenger, Herrera, 23 fled the scene before being captured.


Jorge Humberto Hernandez-Soto

Jorge Humberto Hernandez-Soto: Police say was driving more than 100 mph on the wrong side of Interstate 485 when he collided head-on with the car of 18-year-old Min Soon Chang, a freshman from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, killing him. According to authorities, the illegal alien had already been sent back to Mexico 17 times and convicted of impaired driving at least a couple of times before the November 2005 crash.


Jose Trejo Encino

Jose Trejo Encino: The 27-year-old illegal alien from Mexico admitted to deputies, at the scene of the November 2006 single car accident that killed one of his passengers and injured another, "to drinking a 12-pack of beer earlier in the night," but not before first trying to throw the cans of beer he still had in his car into the woods before police arrived.

Luis Oscar Garcia: Police said Garcia had a strong odor of alcohol on his person and that his pants were soaked with a liquid that indicated the presence of alcohol when he ran a red light and killed 18-year-old James F. Rogers Jr. of North Jackson, Tenn., in August 2006. The 24-year-old Mexican had been living in the U.S. without a green card for three years.


Marcos Ramos Medina. Courtesy Yakima Herald Republic

Marcos Ramos Medina: The 35-year-old Mexican had twice been deported when, on Aug. 4, 2005, his car swerved several times across the center line, causing a tractor-trailer rig to jackknife in Yakima, Wash. His car then plowed head-on into the 2000 Lexus driven by Peggy Keller, 53, dean of distance education at Yakima Valley Community College, killing her at the scene. Medina, who was found to have at least eight aliases and falsely identified himself at his first court appearance, escaped serious injury. The case against the Mexican national was declared a mistrial in August 2006 because his constitutional right to remain silent had been violated. It took a second jury only 30 minutes to find Medina guilty three months later.

Miguel Garduno Gonzalez: The 43-year-old was accused of causing an accident near Lakeland, Fla., on Aug. 2, 2006, that left Haines City police officer Phoenix Braithwaite, 24, dead. Gonzalez was driving a van that while passing two trucks on U.S. 17-92 in Osceola County near the Polk County line hit the officer, who was on his way to work. Braithwaite, who was riding his motorcycle, was hit head-on and died at the scene. Gonzalez, an illegal immigrant, was not hurt and fled the scene. Two passengers in the van also were not hurt also are illegal immigrants. Gonzalez was being held without bail and the two others were held as material witnesses.


Pastor Rios Sanchez

Pastor Rios Sanchez: Despite having pleaded guilty to driving without a license in 2005, and similar counts in March and April of 2006, Sanchez was still on the road on Oct. 27, 2006, when he crossed the yellow line near Sanford, N.C., and collided head-on with a stationwagon carrying Helen Meghan Hughes, 22, of Summerville, S.C., Jennifer Carter, 18, of Jacksonville, N.C., and Hughes' stepbrother, 16-year-old Ben Leonard. All three were killed. The 55-year-old illegal alien was allegedly drunk and carrying a forged residency card.


Ramiro Gallegos

Ramiro Gallegos: In July 2005, Gallegos had already been charged on three separate occasions with drunk driving. His fourth offence caused the death of Scott Gardiner of Mount Holly, N.C., a father of two young children, when the Mexican citizen's truck struck Gardner's station wagon as he drove his family to the coast for vacation.
Vitalina Bautista Vargas bids farewell to husband in court (courtesy Chattanoogan)

Vitalina Bautista Vargas: Neighbors of Louella Winton said the van driven by Vargas, an illegal alien from Mexico, never slowed down before plowing through Winton's home, knocking the 91-year-old woman, who had been asleep in bed, against the wall of the house next door and leaving her under the vehicle outside the house. Winton died of complications from her injuries.

As WND has reported, the mayhem on America's highways isn't limited to illegals who drive only while intoxicated.

Little caution, critics say, is being exercised when it comes to preventing mayhem on America's highways as the country witnesses record high numbers of unlicensed, unregistered, uninsured drivers – millions of whom are illegal aliens.

While no one – in or out of government – tracks traffic accidents caused by illegal aliens, the statistical and anecdotal evidence suggests many of last year's 42,636 road deaths involved illegal aliens.

A report by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Study found 20 percent of fatal accidents involve at least one driver who lacks a valid license. In California, another study showed that those who have never held a valid license are about five times more likely to be involved in a fatal road accident than licensed drivers.

Statistically, that makes them an even greater danger on the road than drivers whose licenses have been suspended or revoked – and nearly as dangerous as drunk drivers.



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"He needs to be in prison, there's no way they're going to be able to deport him and keep him out of our country," Boone's widow, Regina Sorisio, told the Oroville Mercury Register.

This certainly appears to be the case, at least here in California. The illegals seem to be freely able to come and go across the border at will.

And the list of Americans killed at the hands of illegal aliens continues to grow.

Damn shame these are the same people Bush and some in Congress want to give a "pathway to citizenship" or whatever they're calling it today.

Arrested and convicted 9 times! What is wrong with our system?

"We actually treat everybody like they were here legally," said Richmond police Capt. Alec Griffin. "We don't make contacts with ICE just in the course of normal business."

Well with an attitude like that of Capt. Griffen, I can see why ICE didn't run his butt out of here. Tell me Capt., when do you notify ICE Before or after somebody dies?

Its CLEAR there is no prioritizing the list of aliens being sought out and detained/deported. The result is you have a high ratio of aliens picked up in work place raids and a high number of people in the system attempting to legally adjust that ICE conveniently has a name and address for because they tried to do it LEGALLY. These folks have technical flaws in their paperwork. This results in a high number of arrests, full detention centers and lots of “glory” when its time to report numbers to supervisors.

What is going on with all those illegal aliens who have nefarious intent, or have committed multiple crimes such as the drunken driving with traffic fatalities? What about those involved in drug rings, gangs, violent crimes? They are at large in the community and not being apprehended even when the opportunity presents itself multiple times. Another multiple offender killed innocent people in a drunken driving incident. Why didn’t we lock him up and deport him the first time we picked him up?

All “illegal” aliens are not the SAME. There are those who entered legally, attempted adjusting status and are law abiding except for a “technical flaw” in their paperwork, often their VISA overstay is a result of delays in answers from the US Government. Sometimes this can take years. “illegal” Aleins in this situation are “fair game” for ICE while they wait for an answer. There are another million or so “illegal alien” children, spouse, or parent of US Citizen with again, “paperwork problems”.

Then there are thousands of dangerous illegal aliens that need to be "prioritized", apprehended and removed immediately, not after the newest ICE enforcement agencies build an empire destroying families and killing kids. ICE is acting like a donut shop cop, they don't want to tangle with the real criminals so they harrass US Citizen family members and people trying to navigate the system legally.

The reason stated by Bush to incorporate Immigration into DHS was to "improve" the security of the nation. DHS has taken a sound concept and distorted it and mismanaged it to do more harm than good. The fact they are a quasi judicial agency without supervision makes them incredibly dangerous to our notion of DUE PROCESS.

If you were in control of Department of Homeland Security for a day, how would you deal with mixed families containing illegals with paperwork problems, employed worker illegals, unintended VISA overstay illegals, and CRIMINAL INTENT illegals? If you follow your mandate and manage your resources with National Security as the number one priority, who would you be arresting, detaining and deporting?

Where is the DHS respect for taxpayers hard earned dollars? Mid December in an effort to boost annual figures on arrests ICE ran around the country raiding Swift Meat Packing plant and several other locations. Then they dumped these arrested individuals in detention centers costing us $85 a day per detainee. The rest of “Homeland Security” went on Christmas and New Years Holiday, leaving these folks with 3 hots and a cot on our dime while they were out of the office for two weeks. Some of these individuals who are not criminals other then immigrant status violations are still in detention centers at taxpayers expense despite their families offers to pay their plane fares home. Many of these folks ARE STILL BEING HELD IN DETENTION AT TAXPAYER EXPENSE.

Why is there Zero accountability in DHS and when are they getting their turn at a Congressional investigation? Walter Reed is a hiccup compared to the bungling and waste of billions of Tax payer dollars by DHS. The emotional trauma and devastation being visited on US Citizens and their families by this Agency is SHAMEFUL. Assuming fraud of a US Citizen Family with small children and/or doing anything other than expediting the reunification of these families as quickly as possible by government agents is absolutely evil.