A 15-year-old illegal immigrant in Aurora, Colorado, received probation and community service as part of a plea deal with prosecutors after he killed 24-year-old Kaitlyn Weaver last July by plowing a Jeep into the side of her vehicle.
After initially promising to pursue the maximum sentence of two years in a correctional facility for the illegal immigrant, Weaver’s father, John Weaver, said that the Arapahoe District Attorney’s Office changed course after different leadership took over a few months later, CBS News Colorado reported.
“The DA’s office said this would be a ‘no plea deal’ case, so they were not going to offer anything; any concession,” Weaver said.
Kaitlyn, who worked at a drug rehab center in Aurora, was driving home and talking over speaker phone with her boyfriend when the illegal immigrant teenager slammed into the side of her car, driving around 90 mph in a residential area, according to authorities. Footage from a Ring doorbell camera captured the crash, showing the illegal immigrant’s jeep speeding down the road before the massive collision. Kaitlyn was “effectively killed instantly,” her father said. John Weaver and his wife Michelle made the decision to remove Kaitlyn from life support two days later.
The juvenile also had other minors in his vehicle when he crashed into the 24-year-old woman. The Jeep, which the teenager was driving illegally, was uninsured, and his mother said that he took it without her permission. The teen was charged with vehicular homicide.
Under the new Democratic District Attorney, Amy Padden, the illegal immigrant was offered two years of probation if he pleaded guilty, according to Weaver. Arapahoe County Assistant District Attorney Ryan Brackley said the plea deal was handled by an experienced prosecutor and was not influenced by the new district attorney. The deal was upheld by a judge after hearing from the Weaver family, Brackley added.
“Why the change? If he had taken a firearm and recklessly just shot it and killed someone, this would be a different case. They would be pushing it completely differently,” Weaver said. “There’s no deterrence.”
“Immigration and the criminal justice system and all these things landed together one day in Aurora, and now I sit here today without a daughter,” Weaver added.
Brackley defended the plea deal, saying that before any plea deal is negotiated prosecutors consider “the impact on the victims and the community,” “the characteristics of the defendant such as age, culpability, and level of remorse,” and the “goals of sentencing, including deterrence, rehabilitating the offender, treating similarly situated offenders equitably, and holding each offender accountable.”
“The negotiated sentence acknowledges the seriousness of this preventable tragedy,” the assistant district attorney stated.
