Valenzuela gets 13 years in ‘Manila 5’ case
Victim's family: 'This does not feel like justice'
One of two remaining “Manila 5” involved in the killing of Tyson Eduardo Claros was sentenced Monday in Humboldt County Superior Court.
Judge Christopher Wilson sentenced Cesar Valenzuela, 26, who pleaded guilty to charges related to the homicide of Claros, 20, on or about Dec. 12, 2016, to nine years for carjacking and four years for personally using a firearm in the commission of a felony for a total of 13 years in prison.
“This is not the conclusion,” Wilson said. “There’s still one co-defendant that’s remaining to be sentenced, but this has cut the widest swath of destruction amongst a group of young people that I think I’ve ever seen at least in 22 years on the bench.”
The person yet to be sentenced is Fode, the first of the five to accept a plea deal; she had agreed to testify against the others.
Family members Camela Anne Cooper-Claros and Eddie Claros said they were “angry and extremely disappointed” that Valenzuela and his four co-defendants — Catherine Fode, Brandon Mitchell, Tamara Thomson and Hector Godoy-Standley — all received plea deals.
“We want justice for Tyson and this does not feel like justice,” said Cooper-Claros.
The family didn’t want the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office to offer the defendants plea deals and that “Cesar was just as responsible for Tyson’s murder as the rest of them,” she said.
“Cesar secured the guns that shot and killed Tyson,” Cooper-Claros said. “Cesar wasn’t just along for the ride. He knew something was going to happen that night when they all took loaded guns with them.”
According to testimony presented at the preliminary hearing, Thomson had Claros and a friend — a witness granted anonymity by the court — drive to Manila and pull over on the side of the road, where the other four co-defendants confronted and ultimately shot Claros, taking the car and leaving behind Claros and the witness.
The defendants alleged the shooting was the result of believing Claros had molested Fode’s toddler, though those allegations were never substantiated nor proven.
“If we had gone to trial, we felt that Cesar would be serving a much longer sentence than what he plead to,” Cooper-Claros said.
Wilson said he believed the District Attorney’s Office negotiated the deal in good faith, especially in light of changes in the law related to felony murder cases, which disallows prosecutors from holding accountable accomplices of someone who commits murder if they didn’t directly and knowingly participate in the act of killing.
At the same time, Wilson said he understood the victim’s family’s frustration at the plea deal that was struck for Valenzuela given the magnitude of their loss.
“Their sentence is a life sentence without their loved one,” Wilson said.