MARTINEZ — Noe Saucedo, the man convicted of murder for the 2018 Antioch crash that killed two young sisters, was sentenced Friday to life with a chance of parole after 22 years and eight months, a term that was almost instantly condemned by the girls’ mother, who called to the judge at the end of an emotional court hearing.
“My daughters’ lives were taken away. I will never get to see them again,” Edith Ramirez told Judge Anita Santos. “He is gonna get out one day and he’s gonna end up doing the same s***.”
“He may or he may not, ma’am,” replied Santos, who earlier in the hearing said was bound by state law in imposing the sentence.
Last October, Saucedo was convicted of two murders, evading police in a stolen car, and other charges related to the January 2018 crash that killed 4-year-old Lenexy Cardoza and her 2-year-old sister, Camila. The crash — initiated by Saucedo when he ran a red light to escape a sheriff’s deputy on his tail — also badly injured the girls’ mother.
At the beginning of a hearing, Saucedo, 26, offered a tearful apology to the family and asked for forgiveness. The girls’ mother left the courtroom for his statement.
“I’m constantly thinking how I would give my life for your loved ones to be here,” Saucedo said between sobs. “I never meant for this to happen, it’s a heavy burden that I will always carry.”
In a written statement to the court, read aloud by deputy district attorney Alison Chandler, the girls’ father, Jesus Cardoza, said he could not forgive Saucedo for taking the case to trial, where the family saw pictures of the crash and the girls’ autopsy.
“I lost two of my children because of a reckless driver. Our lives will never be the same because of that,” Cardoza said. “We will never see them grow or be able to play with them. Now and forever we will be stuck with what-ifs, and memories.”
At the sentencing hearing, the family played a video of the girls, set to the song, “You Are My Sunshine.” Lenexy “was very smart, very beautiful, loud, caring, and acted very grown-up for her age,” Cardoza said. She “loved role-playing the movie Frozen. She loved singing and dancing. She was her mom’s sidekick and never left her side.”
“(Camilla) looked up to her sister, even though she was hard-pressed and very, very brave on her own,” he added.
Saucedo was convicted of two second-degree murders, which each carry a sentence of 15 years to life in prison. Santos tacked on an extra seven years and eight months, citing Saucedo’s “conduct in this case, specifically the evading, the running of the red light.”
Santos allowed the murder sentences to run concurrently, stating that California law doesn’t allow consecutive sentences unless the crimes are separate events. Since both murders occurred in a single event, she could not rule otherwise, she said.
“I cannot ignore the directives that I am bound to follow — and I know this is a horrible event,” Santos said.
The time Saucedo spent in the county jail awaiting resolution in his case will count toward his prison sentence.
Earlier in the day, Saucedo’s attorney, deputy public defender Tim Ahearn, had asked for the sentences to be run concurrently.
“His actions that day don’t describe Mr. Saucedo as the person he is,” Ahearn said. “He stands before the court convicted of murder. I don’t think I’ve ever had a client so remorseful.”
Chandler asked for the “maximum allowable sentence,” and said Saucedo had several opportunities to change his course of actions the day of the murders.
“This wasn’t a three-second decision. There were almost 10 miles of him driving away from the police,” Chandler said.
The day of the crash, a sheriff’s deputy spotted Saucedo in Bay Point, driving a truck he had stolen hours earlier. He followed Saucedo onto Highway 4 heading east, following the truck at freeway speeds until Saucedo got to Antioch and got off the highway at the Somersville Road exit, before speeding through a red light.
The deputy activated his lights seconds before Saucedo sped through the intersection at an estimated 50 to 70 miles per hour, and T-boned a car containing the girls and their mother. Saucedo was thrown clear of the stolen truck, and sustained non-life threatening injuries. Witnesses said the impact of the crash sounded like an explosion and flung debris in all directions.
Meth was later found in Saucedo’s system. During trial, the defense argued he wasn’t trying to evade the deputy, and that he had lost control of the truck.
