Thread: NM - Illegal immigrant sentenced to 15 years for murder,drug

Illegal immigrant sentenced to 15 years for murder, drugsBy James Monteleone The Daily Times
Posted: 03/10/2009 12:00:00 AM MDT


FARMINGTON — A 24-year-old illegal immigrant was sentenced to 15 years in prison after accepting a guilty plea Friday to manslaughter and drug trafficking charges in state district court.
Israel Rojas-Rodriguez, who lived in Farmington, is accused of killing Scott Burch, 32, outside Burch's County Road 3000 home Sept. 10.

The 15-year sentence given Friday was the maximum amount of prison time available for the charges to which the man pleaded.

Prosecutors initially alleged Rojas-Rodriguez shot the man to death with a single .22-caliber bullet because he believed Burch was "fooling around" with his girlfriend. He was charged with an open count of murder.

No members of the victim's family spoke at the hearing.

Rojas-Rodriguez pleaded no contest to a reduced murder charge, third-degree manslaughter, punishable by up to six years in prison. The man also pleaded no contest to an unrelated second-degree methamphetamine trafficking charge. An additional drug trafficking charge was dismissed as a condition of the combined plea agreement.

Because the motive for the September murder remains unclear, proving a more serious murder charge at trial was a risk, District Attorney Rick Tedrow said.

Prosecutors also struggled to keep key witnesses from fleeing the country.

"There's allegations of a fight over a girl, but there is also allegations that this could have been drug dealing gone wrong," Tedrow said. "When you have people that aren't very cooperative and

giving different stories, it really changes the picture of the outcome of what the District Attorney's Office can go for when seeking to get beyond a reasonable doubt."
By joining the murder plea with an unrelated undercover drug buy, the sentence would be more fitting for murder, he said.

"Sometimes you take what you can get. You walk away from the table with something," Tedrow said. "It's going to take him off the streets for 15 years to protect the community."

Attorney Cosme Ripol, representing Rojas-Rodriguez, requested the court place Rojas-Rodriguez on probation and deport him to Mexico, an alternative the judge rejected with little consideration.

"He insisted upon his innocence on all three cases. He insisted he was not a drug trafficker and he insisted he did not shoot and kill Scott Burch," Ripol said.

The defense attorney, however, encouraged the man to consider the plea bargain, recognizing Rojas-Rodriguez faced up to 30 years in prison on the murder charge and an additional 18 years for the two drug trafficking charges.

Ripol said the sentence was reasonable.

"For two trafficking charges and a murder, he did pretty well," he said.


James Monteleone:

jmonteleone@daily-times.com





http://www.daily-times.com/ci_11875768

If all jurisdictions reported these stories, and the media published them, the know numbers would be much greater.