A previously deported illegal alien received a two-year state jail sentence after killing a Texas volunteer firefighter and two of his children in a 2016 car crash. The criminal alien pleaded guilty to a single count of criminally negligent homicide. His actions separated the victim’s family, leaving a mother to raise the remaining four children alone.
Margarito Quintero Rosales fell asleep at the wheel and crossed the center line of the highway, striking a vehicle driven by Collin County volunteer firefighter Captain Peter Hacking, Breitbart Texas reported in April 2016. Quintero also killed Hacking’s four-year-old daughter, Ellie, and his 22-month-old son Grayson in the crash. The illegal alien was not licensed to drive.
Shortly after the crash, KRLD radio reporter L.P. Phillips contacted immigration officials and learned that Quintero is an illegal alien who had been deported in 2008. Police arrested the criminal alien at the scene and officials held him in jail until his conviction.
A Collin County grand jury indicted Quintero in June 2016 on three counts of manslaughter, WFAA ABC8 reported. The penalty range for manslaughter in Texas is two to 20 years in state prison for each count.
Court records obtained by Breitbart Texas show Quintero struck a deal with prosecutors from Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis’ office whereby he pleaded guilty to a single count of the lesser included offense of criminally negligent homicide. The other two counts were dismissed by 308th District Court Judge Benjamin N. Smith as part of the plea agreement. The maximum penalty for this charge is two years in state jail.
Quintero received a credit for time served of more than 500 days before his conviction, the Dallas ABC affiliate reported. His jail time will be completed in a little longer than 100 days.
Courtney Hacking, the widow of Capt. Hacking, is now raising four children on her own.
“How do you look at someone and say, ‘You killed 3 people, two years is all’,” she told the WFAA reporter. She expressed her concern that the justice system failed her.
She appeared on Fox & Friends on Saturday morning.
The widow expressed her feelings of the loss of her husband and two children.
“I miss their kisses,” she told the interviewer. “I miss everything about them on a daily basis.”
She went on to express her shock at being re-victimized by the justice system that will let Rosales go free after serving a two-year sentence for three deaths.
“People think his crime and his punishment seem to fit because he was an illegal immigrant,” she explained. “But to me being illegal in the country was a crime on its own so I don’t understand how he did get only two years.”
Federal prosecutors also filed charges of illegal re-entry after removal–a charge that also carries a sentence of up to two years, Fox News reported. A federal court convicted Quintero and sentenced him to two years in prison. The federal sentence is running concurrently with the state sentence.
Breitbart Texas reached out to immigration officials to confirm if Quintero will be deported upon the completion of his penalties.
“The message needs to be put across to them that when you come to this country you need to do it legally,” Hacking expressed, “because when they come here all they’re getting is…they’re committing crimes, they’re getting a slap on the wrist and they’re going back to Mexico or they’re going back to whatever country they came from.”
Capt. Hacking was a newcomer to the United States. He immigrated legally from England, Hacking said.
At the conclusion of her WFAA interview, Mrs. Hacking fought back tears and noted, “I feel like I walk around just existing. I’m not happy, and I’m not sad, I’m just here.”
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX, GAB, and Facebook.