Thread: Illegal immigrant gets 5-year sentence in hit-and-run case

http://www.newsleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll ... 30327/1002

Illegal immigrant gets 5-year sentence in hit-and-run case
Killer evaded police for more than four years
By Brad Zinn/staff
bzinn@newsleader.com

STAUNTON — An Amherst County man on the run from authorities for more than four years until his capture in April received a five-year-prison term Friday for the 2002 hit-and-run death of a Waynesboro man.

On April 6, authorities arrested Roman Pena Rubi, 29, formerly of Crozet, in connection with the death of William Timothy Johnson. On Feb. 2, 2002, Johnson was struck and killed as he stood on Interstate 64 following a minor fender-bender.

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According to testimony at Friday's sentencing hearing in Waynesboro Circuit Court, Johnson and another man were using a trailer to tow a vehicle on I-64 westbound near exit 96 when a tractor-trailer blew by them, causing the trailer to fishtail and touch off a minor accident. The hitch to the trailer broke, leaving part of the trailer on the interstate.

Johnson, according to Virginia State Police Special Agent D.P. Cappuzzo, stood between the stalled trailer and oncoming traffic with a flashlight in an attempt to alert others to the accident scene. Rubi, driving a Chevrolet Celebrity and headed to a Staunton nightclub after leaving a Charlottesville nightclub, hit Johnson with his car, killing him. Rubi fled the scene on foot.

Virginia State Police tracked the Chevrolet and a cell phone left behind to a Nelson County horse farm where Rubi was employed. Rubi, though, quit his job the day after the fatal accident and managed to avoid police for more than four years.

With the help of officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Harrisonburg, in April 2006 police located Rubi at an apple orchard in Amherst County where he was working. He initially provided police with a false name, Cappuzzo said.

Rubi, an illegal alien who managed to obtain a Virginia driver's license in 1999, took the stand Friday and apologized for leaving the scene of the accident. "I got out and started walking," he said. "'Cause I was afraid, I didn't know what to do."

Cappuzzo said police found evidence of alcohol consumption in Rubi's car, and noted that witnesses at the scene said the defendant reeked of alcohol. Rubi denied being intoxicated. Had Rubi been found to be under the influence at the time of the hit-and-run death, the prosecutor's office could have charged him with vehicular manslaughter, prompting assistant prosecutor David Ledbetter to request a 10-year prison term. "He should not be rewarded for fleeing the scene," he said. "He killed a man and left."

Though sentencing guidelines called for a recommended maximum sentence of six months on the charge of hit-and-run involving death, Judge Humes J. Franklin Jr. gave Rubi five years in prison. Federal authorities also have placed an immigration retainer on Rubi.

wait a minute, 5 years? and it could be less if he gets out on good behavior?

i sure as hell hope that he gets deported after this