A convicted drunk driver made a final plea in court on Monday.
Overcome with emotion, Zdeineb Juarez Calderon asked her public defender to read a letter.
“I tried so hard not to cry,” public defender Alena Chaps read. “Not because I don’t feel remorse, but I felt that I didn’t deserve to be the one to cry.”
While Calderon asked the court to have mercy, she got the maximum sentence.
She will now spend ten years in prison after pleading no contest to manslaughter, driving with a suspended license, and getting behind the wheel while under the influence.
It was that decision to drive drunk that investigators say cost Jeff Nazaroff his life back in April 2022.
The 59-year-old man was driving in a dump truck through the intersection of Church and Brawley Avenues southwest of Fresno. He was clear to go, but cross traffic had a stop sign.
Calderon’s Jeep did not stop.
“The Jeep broadsided the truck,” California Highway Patrol officer Sean Duncan said at the time. “The truck was pushed off the roadway into a front yard of a residence where the truck hit a tree.”