A 36-year-old Santa Ana man was sentenced on Tuesday, Dec. 13, to 15 years to life in prison for killing an escort seven years ago in a Newport Beach office building where he was a janitor.
Nain Isaac Nieto Hernandez, 36, had been convicted of second-degree murder in the Dec. 18, 2015, killing of 23-year-old Sarai Alcaraz of Long Beach at 5030 Campus Drive.
“It was a horrible death she did not deserve,” Senior Deputy District Attorney Robert Goodkin told Orange County Superior Court Judge Richard King before sentencing.
Hernandez’s attorney, Cameron Talley, said he was “proud to represent” the defendant.
“I thought he had a defensible case and thought he was innocent,” Talley said. “But he was found guilty and we accept that.”
Jurors, who could also consider voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter, deliberated for two days before reaching a verdict.
Back in 2015, police were called just after midnight to an architectural firm’s offices when an escort service reported one of its employees missing, according to a trial brief by Goodkin.
Police found the victim’s body stuffed in a trash can in a supply closet.
The victim sustained “severe head and facial trauma” and “blood was running from both ears, and her nose,” Goodkin said. Police found the defendant’s driver’s license at the scene, and they also recovered a Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol, Goodkin said.
Hernandez, a mixed martial-arts fighter, testified that he acted in self-defense when she attempted to rob him and that he just shoved her but did not punch her.
Source: Orange County Register
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