‘Mobber’ is sentenced to 12 years for shooting death
Rodriguez was termed the second in command in spree
The 18-year-old who has been called the second in command in the “mobbing” death of an Albuquerque bartender learned Friday he will spend the next 12 to 14 years in prison.
District Judge Brett Loveless sentenced Christopher Rodriguez to 31½ years in prison, but he suspended all but 14 and gave credit for his nearly two years already served.
Rodriguez was 16 at the time he and five friends shot Steven Gerecke, 60, during a night of auto and home burglaries in June 2015. Friday’s sentencing is the last in the case.
The teen who pulled the trigger that night,
Jeremiah King, was sentenced to 25 years in adult prison. The other four teens were found amenable to treatment and sentenced as juveniles.
Rodriguez has been found unsuitable for treatment in prison and faced all 31½ years under a plea deal in which state prosecutors asked for the full sentence, arguing he is a danger to the community and didn’t make an effort to change his behavior in the juvenile detention facility.
“I think that he has demonstrated there is really no reason to think that putting him on probation or by giving him another chance that he is going to take advantage of that opportunity,” prosecutor Larissa Calloway said in court Friday.
Rodriguez’s defense attorney, Randy Chavez, argued for a lighter sentence because the teen had an extremely traumatic childhood and he does want a chance to change.
Chavez said Rodriguez as a child was arrested for stealing a car with his mother who is now in prison on drug charges, his dad overdosed in front of him when the boy was 12, and he needs counseling, not a life in prison.
“He’s still a repairable kid,” he said.
Loveless struggled to bridge the two views, acknowledging the state’s documentation that Rodriguez has substantial personality and psychological indicators of future violence, but also acknowledging the difficulties that produced those deficiencies.
“It pains me to be in this situation,” Loveless told the court, noting it pained others in the court, too.
Looking at Rodriguez, who sat handcuffed in a black T-shirt with only four friends and no family in the courtroom for support, Loveless told him that “at some point you’ll be out of custody and you’re going to have a life to live ... what kind of life do you want to live? ... Do you want to have children of your own? ... Do you want to be there for them the way your parents have clearly not been there for you?”
Rodriguez apologized to the Gerecke family during the hearing and said he wants to change his life and get an education.
The Gereckes said they don’t accept his apology and will never forgive him or any of the other teens involved in the killing of their “man in the moon,” daughter Heather Alter said, noting they were disappointed in the prison or probation sentences for the teens as part of the “wheels of injustice.”
“I’m not forgiving, but I’m going to learn to forget and I’m going to be able to sleep at night and my heart will be calm and filled with love because I’m a healer,” Alter said. “I could put them on an island right now and hit a nuke button and be perfectly fine with that.”
She said she is moving away from Albuquerque.