Tomball man gets 50 years in crash killing 3
A Tomball man who fled after killing three people in a drunken driving crash pleads guilty to intoxication manslaughter, bargaining for a 50-year prison sentence.
A Tomball man who fled after killing three people in a 2016 drunken driving crash pleaded guilty Thursday to three counts of intoxication manslaughter, bargaining for a 50-year prison sentence.
Jeremy Valdez, 27, who wore a starched white western shirt and tan pants, sobbed softly during the proceedings. His voice cracked each time he said, “Guilty” while making his plea. He also admitted that he used an automobile as a deadly weapon, in an accident where police determined he was driving over 100 mph.
Family members of the father, mother and teenage son who were killed in Spring cried as they watched intently from the courtroom gallery.
Emilio Avila, 34, Hilda Avila, 42, and Mauricio Ramirez, an 18-year-old student at Klein Oak High School, were killed just after midnight May 21, 2016.
The black Honda sedan they were in was hit by a Dodge Ram pickup truck driven by Valdez after he ran a red light.
In court, Mario Nolasco, who is Hilda Avila’s brother, gave a tearful victim impact statement about the two children, now aged 14 and 11, the Avila’s left behind.
“They used to smile a lot, but now they don’t smile at all,” Nolasco said through a Spanish translator. “This changed a lot of lives just because someone was being irresponsible.”
Nolasco and his wife are now raising the orphans, who were not at
court.
Sean Teare, chief of the vehicular crimes division of the Harris County District Attorney’s Office said the Avila family were in a sedan and making a left turn from Kuykendahl onto FM 2920 when they were struck by Valdez’s truck.
He said data recovered from the truck showed it was going 103 mph. An hour and a half after the crash, Valdez had a blood alcohol level of .21, almost three times more than the legal limit of .08.
The pickup flipped over several times before landing upright almost a block away, prosecutors said.
Investigators said Valdez, the only occupant, fled the scene of the crash. He was caught later by good Samaritans and arrested by deputies with the Precinct 4 Constable’s Office. Several of those deputies were in court Thursday because they expected to testify in the trial, which was expected to last about a week.
The case has garnered wide interest because Valdez had three prior convictions for driving while intoxicated, court records show. For the last one, he was sentenced to two years in prison.
In that case, he led police on a 22-mile chase that ended when he crashed into a pickup truck carrying two women who had to be hospitalized.
DWI’s are typically misdemeanors, but after two convictions, they can be upgraded to felony charges, which carry prison time.
Valdez will be required to serve at least half of the sentence, 25 years, before he is eligible for parole. In taking the plea deal, he shaved five years off the time he would have had
to wait for parole if he had been sentenced to life.
If convicted and sentenced to life, he would have had to wait 30 years before being eligible for parole. Prosecutors also said they were going to ask that the three sentences be stacked. If granted, Valdez never would have been released.
State District Judge Denise Collins accepted the plea deal after Valdez and his attorney assured the judge that he was competent.
Valdez’s competency
had been raised before trial and was expected to be an issue in any appeal. The 27-year-old signed away his right to appeal as part of the plea.
Defense attorney Louis Jones said he was convinced Valdez was competent to accept the deal, even though he filed a request for a competency hearing just days before the trial started Wednesday.
“It is my opinion that he is competent,” Jones said.