Nearly a year and a half after a drunk driving incident claimed the life of Evangeline Parish native Dustin Vidrine, the man responsible pled guilty to vehicular homicide and was sentenced to 12 years at hard labor on February 15, 2018.
Illegal alien, Arturo Velasquez, was originally charged with no seat belt, driving left of center, operating a vehicle without a driver’s license and vehicular homicide following the car crash that occurred in September of 2016 on Highway 13 in the Reddell area.
After being arrested for the crash, it was discovered that Velasquez was illegally in the United States when a Deportation and Removal Officer (DRO) working for the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement found the defendant in pretrial detention at the Evangeline Parish jail.
It was learned that Velasquez had an existing United States Alien file (A-File) and that “on or about December 8, 2012, a United States Immigration Court ordered his (Velasquez) removal” from the U.S.
According to federal court records, “on or about March 7, 2013, ICE officers physically removed him to Mexico.”
The records went on to state that “at no time has the defendant received the express consent of the Attorney General of the United States, or the Secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security, to apply for admission to the United States, nor has he at any time been paroled into the United States.”
Velasquez, who is a native citizen of Mexico, was forced to face his re-entry crime before he could answer to the vehicular homicide he committed in Evangeline Parish.
In May of 2017, Velasquez entered a plea of guilty in federal court for the charge of re-entry by an alien following removal. In August, he was then sentenced to serve six months in prison for re-entry.
After serving his federal sentence, Velasquez appeared before Judge Chuck West on February 15th and pled guilty to vehicular homicide. He was not prosecuted for the three other charges.
Velasquez was sentenced to 12 years at hard labor, with three of those years being suspended, and three years of active supervised probation. The illegal alien has also been ordered to pay a $1,000 fine, $127.50 for court costs, $350 to the indigent defender board, $250 for the cost of prosecution, $100 warrant fee, $50 victim fee, and $250 to the crime lab.
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ELIZABETH WEST