Thread: Illegal Immigrant living in Reno sentenced to 20 years

Illegal Immigrant living in Reno sentenced to 20 years in friend's stabbing death
6:22 PM, Jul. 29, 2011

A 34-year-old illegal immigrant was sentenced Friday to eight to 20 years in prison for the December stabbing death of a friend — who was also a romantic rival — during a dispute about a $50 drug debt.

Mark Anthony Bustamonte Jr. will be eligible for parole after serving eight years in prison on a charge of voluntary manslaughter in the Dec. 26 death of Paul Bennett, 30.

Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have also placed a hold on Bustamonte, who received the maximum term from Washoe District Judge Steven Elliott. Bustamonte will face deportation after he completes his sentence or is paroled.

Authorities said that Bustamonte and Bennett had been friends, and also sold drugs together in the community. Bustamonte, of Reno, had also been having an affair with Bennett’s girlfriend, investigators said.

On Dec. 26 the men met on Sigg Street in Reno to discuss the $50 Bustamonte owed Bennett for drugs, authorities said. They had a physical fight that led to Bustamonte stabbing Bennett once in the abdomen, and leaving him in the street to die, police said. Neighbors called police to report Bennett’s lifeless body was in the street. Police soon tracked Bustamonte to a motel room at a South Reno casino and he was arrested after an interview.

Bustamonte’s attorney, Jim Leslie, said the killing was in self defense. He asked Elliott to sentence Bustamonte to probation. Leslie offered that Bustamonte grew up without a father figure and joined a gang at age 12 — leaving it when he was 18 after suffering a voluntary beating by fellow gang members to release him.

But Deputy District Attorney Luke Prengaman said Bustamonte initially denied involvement in Bennett’s killing, then shifted blame to other people, and then asked officers guarding him at the police station if claiming the death resulted from self defense would help his case.

“I would like to say I am so sorry to his family,â€

Only 34? He'd squeeze in under the Dream Act.