MISS-Garcia gets eight years, then deportation
Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2008
Comments (5) | Recommend (0)
By ROBIN FITZGERALD - rfitzgerald@sunherald.com
GULFPORT -- A man who was in the country illegally when he left the scene of a deadly accident faces deportation after serving an eight-year sentence imposed Monday.
Raymoundo Rojas Garcia told Circuit Judge Lisa Dodson he had been in South Mississippi without proper documentation about a year when his pickup struck a motorcycle on U.S. 49 in Orange Grove. Saucier resident Wayne Hughes, 45, and wife, Michelle, 48, died in the crash on June 24, 2007.
The maximum penalty for leaving the scene of an accident causing death is five years in prison. Dodson gave Garcia four years per death, to be served consecutively.
Wayne and Michelle Hughes had just enjoyed a Sunday-morning buffet at a nearby restaurant and were northbound on their Suzuki when a southbound truck driven by Garcia turned in front of them toward O'Neal Road.
Assistant District Attorney John Gargiulo credited the work of two off-duty state troopers and others with "immediate and prompt attention." One of the state troopers ordered Garcia to stand by the road but he disappeared, along with two passengers later identified as his wife and child.
"They had walked a good distance before they were found," Gargiulo said. "They even had to traverse over a barbed-wire fence."
The family was found on Plunkett Road off O'Neal. Garcia had no driver's license or insurance and had been arrested a week earlier on a drunken-driving charge. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement placed a hold on him after the fatal crash.
Garcia pleaded guilty on July 14 to leaving the scene.
On Monday, Ronald Miglory read this victim-impact statement in court: "We have a 20-year-old granddaughter who feels lost and adrift with the sudden loss of her mother and father and a 23-year-old grandson who witnessed the accident."
Another relative told Garcia he came to this country, broke its laws and took two lives. The Hugheses, married 23 years, had two sons, three daughters and eight grandchildren.
Garcia apologized to the family through an interpreter.
"He said he was sad and could understand how upset they were because he has children as well," Gargiulo said.
http://www.sunherald.com/local/story/770354.html
