‘A terrible accident ... the loss of an entire family.’ Modesto man sentenced in DUI case
Jorge Sanchez said in Stanislaus Superior Court last week that on June 9, 2019, he lost everything.
A statement by Geronimo Vega said, “because that day there was a tragedy, a terrible accident that caused the loss of an entire family.”
It was the day Felix Ferdin left a barbecue in south Modesto with a blood alcohol content nearly twice the legal limit, drove away reaching speeds of 78 mph in a residential zone and crashed into the bedroom of a home on Sam Avenue where a mother and her three children slept.
Mari Luz Jacinto Hernandez, 38, and her daughters 5-year-old Eileen Lopez Jacinto and 3-year-old Alexa Sanchez died that night. Her daughter Yoseline Vega, 10, was hospitalized but died a week later.
Sanchez lamented that Yoseline suffered for so long. “She was looking for her sisters and her mom. What do you think she thought when she didn’t see them?” he said through a Spanish interpreter.
Sanchez, who is Hernandez’s husband and father to the youngest girls, and Vega, who is father to Yoseline, gave victim impact statements Friday before Ferdin was sentenced. Ferdin was convicted by a jury in May of four counts of second-degree murder and four counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated.
“Although three years have passed, for me, it seems like yesterday,” Vega said in his statement read by Deputy District Attorney Larissa Jones. “I wish it was a nightmare, but unfortunately it is a reality. It’s been a long battle that I still haven’t managed to overcome.”
Sanchez asked Judge Nancy Leo to impose the maximum sentence.
“We want to make sure that he doesn’t cause any more harm,” he said. “I don’t have anything. Life changed for everybody. So the minimum we expect is that the gentlemen stays (behind bars) for life. That’s it, thank you.”
Ferdin also gave a statement during the hearing. He said each of the victims’ names as he faced the family in the courtroom gallery and cried as he apologized for his actions.
His attorney asked that he get the lesser sentence for manslaughter instead of murder, that each of the four sentences be served concurrently and that a prior strike not be taken into consideration.
Judge Leo imposed the maximum sentence for each count of murder on which Ferdin was convicted, ordered that they be served concurrently and added time for the prior strike. The result: a prison sentence of 140 years to life.
This story was originally published August 3, 2022 at 6:30 AM.
