Thread: TX: Driver faces 3 felony charges

Driver faces 3 felony charges

By T.J. Aulds
The Daily News
Published November 17, 2010

WEBSTER —The driver of a truck that crashed Sunday and caught fire killing three people, including two sisters from Dickinson, faces three felony charges for fleeing the scene of the accident, the Webster police chief said.

Jose Marvin Sarmientos, 20, was supposed to have been deported before the crash on Interstate 45 near the Webster and League City city limits but had skipped a hearing.

Sarmientos was arrested Monday night at his mother’s apartment in Houston after he was released from the hospital, Police Chief Ray Smiley said. He is charged with three counts of failing to stop and render aid.

Sarmientos, who is from El Salvador, was in the country illegally and in addition to the felony charges was being held Tuesday for failing to show up for a deportation hearing, Greg Palmore, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Houston, said. Palmore said Sarmientos was to have been deported in 2007.

Sarmientos was driving a 2004 GMC truck after he and the victims left a nightclub in south Houston.

They were traveling south on Interstate 45 just before 3 a.m. Sunday when Sarmientos lost control of the pickup, police said.

The truck struck a concrete divider, careened over the main and frontage lanes, and crashed into a tree, police said. Sarmientos kicked out a truck window and fled on foot, police said.

Two men who were about a block away changing a flat tire heard the crash and rushed to try and save those trapped inside, but the blaze was too intense.

Sarmientos was found in a Baybrook area shopping center about six hours after the accident. Because he was missing for so long, tests for alcohol would not have been valid, Smiley said.

Sarmientos is essentially being held without bond by immigration officials, but bonds for fleeing the accident that killed sisters Maria Castillo, 17, and Mayra Castillo, 22, of Dickinson, and Marvin Lionel Garcia, 19, total $210,000, Smiley said.

Sarmientos was scheduled to be transferred from the Webster city jail to the Harris County Jail on Tuesday night.

http://galvestondailynews.com

How many more Americans have to die before our government does its job and stops illegal immigration?

ANOTHER illegal driving around Texas. How many more Americans have to die at the hands of these criminals???