A man from Guatemala who was sentenced to 16 years in prison for a drunk-driving crash that killed Indianapolis Colts linebacker Edwin Jackson and his Uber driver last year, has this week received an additional 42-month sentence for returning to the United States after being deported.
United States Attorney Josh J. Minkler on Sept. 17 said Manuel Orrego-Savala, 38, had been sentenced to an additional three-and-a-half years behind bars after he pleaded guilty to illegally reentering the United States.
The additional sentence would “send a strong message to the defendant and others similarly situated that we are a nation of laws and that there are real consequences that come from violating those laws,” said McCoskey.
Federal prosecutors said the Guatemalan national was in the United States illegally after having been deported twice before.
Orrego-Savala pleaded guilty last July to two counts of operating a motor vehicle with a blood-alcohol content of .15 or more, causing death. The sentence marked the maximum possible under his plea agreement.
Investigators said the twice-deported Orrego-Savala had a blood-alcohol content of 0.19—nearly two-and-a-half times Indiana’s legal limit—when his truck crashed into Jackson and Monroe on Feb. 4 2018 along Interstate 70 in Indianapolis.
Monroe, of Avon, Indiana, had pulled over when the 26-year-old Jackson became ill. Both men were standing outside Monroe’s car on the highway’s shoulder when Orrego-Savala’s truck crashed into them.
Authorities said Orrego-Savala was walking away from the crash when a state trooper detained him. Under his plea agreement, prosecutors dropped two counts of failing to remain at the scene of an accident.
The 38-year-old was previously convicted of two drug felonies in California before he was removed from the country for the first time in 2007. Orrego-Zavala was found in the United States and deported two years later, in May 2009, according to court records.
U.S. Attorney Josh Minkler said in a statement: “Mr. Orrego-Zavala reentered the country illegally for the second time before he put the public safety of Indianapolis at risk and took the lives of two innocent men on Feb. 4, 2018.
“This prosecution represents our office’s commitment to charging aliens that illegally reenter the country, especially if they are a risk to public safety or there is a criminal history present.”
