WOODLAND — With more than a dozen of their alleged victim’s relatives watching, the three suspects in a Woodland hit-and-run fatality pleaded not guilty Friday to criminal charges stemming from the deadly incident.
Raymond Melchor Contreras, 34; Norma Linda Gentry, 23; and Roberto Garza Sanchez, 50; all Woodland residents, appeared in Yolo Superior Court out of custody, having posted bail shortly after their arrests last month in connection with the Nov. 12 death of Richard Louis Tafoya, who was struck and killed while walking his dog on Mariposa Street.
All three are due back in court Feb. 16 for a preliminary hearing, a proceeding to determine whether there is sufficient evidence for the case to proceed to trial.
Attorneys for the three defendants — Pat McCarthy, Michael Stewart and Gary Talesfore, who represent Contreras, Gentry and Sanchez, respectively — declined to comment on the allegations against their clients, who also were accompanied by numerous relatives in court.
Woodland police have said that Contreras was driving the Dodge Ram pickup that struck Tafoya, 65, as he walked his dog across Mariposa Street near Utah Avenue at 3:30 a.m. The truck was registered to Gentry, who was in the passenger seat at the time, police said.
According to investigators, Contreras and Gentry fled the scene following the collision and told Sanchez, Gentry’s father, that they had struck a tire in the road to explain the damage to the vehicle. Sanchez, in turn, allegedly filed a false insurance claim saying he had been driving the pickup and hit a milk crate, as his daughter had a suspended driver’s license at the time due to a DUI conviction.
Police said the trio then arranged for the Dodge to be repaired at a local auto-body shop, which alerted authorities after reading newspaper reports describing the suspect vehicle.
A four-page criminal complaint filed last month charges Contreras with hit and run causing death or permanent serious injury. Gentry and Sanchez face felony counts of being an accessory to a felony and and making a false and fraudulent insurance claim.
All three defendants are named in two other counts: destroying or concealing evidence, a misdemeanor, as well as conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor, which is a felony offense.
If convicted, Contreras faces at most about five years in state prison, prosecutors say — information that came as a surprise to Tafoya’s relatives who attended Friday’s court hearing. Gentry and Sanchez, meanwhile, face between three and four years.
“It’s a shame,” said Gil Cital, Tafoya’s nephew. “You couldn’t get any more than five years for killing somebody and hiding it.”
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene
