Five-time deportee gets ‘time served’ over gun

SAN FRANCISCO — A Mexican man acquitted of murder in the shooting death of a San Francisco woman that sparked a national immigration debate was sentenced Friday to time served for illegal gun possession in the same case.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Samuel Feng also denied a defense request to grant Jose Ines Garcia Zarate a new trial over his conviction of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Garcia Zarate still faces two federal gun-possession charges.

Garcia Zarate had previously been convicted of illegally reentering the United States and had been deported five times before Kate Steinle was fatally shot on a popular pier in July 2015.

The San Francisco sheriff’s department released him from jail several weeks before the shooting, ignoring a federal request to detain him for a sixth deportation. San Francisco’s “sanctuary city” policy bars local officials from helping U.S. immigration authorities in deportation matters unless they have a warrant.

Federal prosecutors charged Garcia Zarate with two gunpossession counts after a San Francisco jury acquitted him of murder on Nov. 30 but found him guilty of the gun charge. strengthen his nation’s military even as the two Koreas agreed to start high-level talks at the border village of Panmunjom on Tuesday.

“I won’t be weak-kneed or just focus on dialogue, as we did in the past,” Moon told leaders of the Korean Senior Citizens Association. “I will push for dialogue and pursue peace, but will do so based on a strong national-defense capability.”

In inviting members of the association to the presidential residence, Moon was trying to lessen fears among older and conservative South Koreans that he might be conceding too much to the North as he champions talks. Moon has moved to build more powerful missiles and get new weapons from the United States.

On Tuesday, the two Koreas are to discuss the North’s offer to send a delegation to the Winter Olympics being held in South Korea starting Feb. 7.