Drunk driver gets near-max sentence for killing Las Vegas airman, 23

Yahoo

a day ago

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A drunk driver who killed an airman on a Las Vegas-area freeway will serve nearly the maximum sentence allowed by Nevada law, a judge ruled Tuesday.
On April 13, 2024, Hetsel Campos killed Airman Natalie Villegas, 23, as Villegas was driving to work at Creech Air Force Base on U.S. 95.
Villegas joined the United States Air Force when she was 18, her family said during Campos' sentencing Tuesday.
Earlier this year, Campos took a plea deal, avoiding a trial and sending him to prison for at least two years. Nevada state law requires a judge to sentence drunk drivers who kill to 2-20 years. State law limits the maximum amount of time a defendant can serve in prison before becoming parole eligible to eight years, making 8-20 years the maximum sentence.
Campos' blood-alcohol level was about twice the legal limit when police tested it in the hours after the crash, documents said.
In court Tuesday, Clark County District Court Judge Tara Clark Newberry sentenced Campos to nearly the maximum penalty: 6-20 years.
'I should be the one that's gone — and not her,' Campos said before Clark Newberry sentenced him. 'I should be the one that's not here.'
Campos' attorney, Josh Tomsheck, argued his client had a clean record. Villegas' family pressed the judge for the maximum possible sentence.
'My daughter was taken from us all by an irresponsible decision,' Carol Vanessa Serrano, Natalie's mother, said. 'My daughter had no chance. She was simply on her way to do what she loved, and that was to serve this country.'
The crash happened around sunrise near mile marker 99. Villegas was driving northbound toward Creech when Campos rear-ended her at 117 miles per hour, police said after his arrest. In the hours before the crash, surveillance showed Campos drinking at Downtown Las Vegas casinos.
For reasons unknown, Campos was driving north, miles away from the Las Vegas valley and his home, police said.
'While on her way to serve our country, you irresponsibly and selfishly came along and took all that away from my daughter,' said Natalie's father, Juan Villegas.
'My charge and my oath is to uphold justice and to hold people accountable for the choices that they make. And unfortunately, Mr. Campos, you made the worst possible choice you could have probably made in your life that night.'
Clark Newberry's sentence means Campos will be parole eligible in 2031.
A proposal earlier this year from Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo to change the law to allow prosecutors to charge a DUI driver who kills with second-degree murder failed. The amended version would have carried a similar maximum sentence as the state's second-degree murder statute. A second proposal focusing on Nevada's vehicular homicide law also failed.
Lawmakers will not reconvene, except for special circumstances at the request of the governor, until February 2027.
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