Gilberto Sotelo, wearing sunglasses in a family photo, was killed in a hit and run crash Aug. 7 along a highway in Riverside County, Calif. Giovanni Ceja, right, a corporal with the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, was arrested and convicted of second-degree murder on Jan. 30. (Sotelo family picture via GoFundMe; Ceja mug shot from the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office)
A judge sentenced a now-former Texas jail detention deputy to 15 years to life in prison for striking a man on the side of a California road and fleeing the scene, prosecutors said.
Giovanni Ceja, who at the time of the crash worked as a deputy for the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office in San Antonio, was convicted on Tuesday of second-degree murder in the death of 38-year-old Gilberto Sotelo, according to the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors said Ceja, 31, was intoxicated during the crash that occurred on the southbound shoulder of Interstate 215, just north of La Cadena Drive, early in the morning of Aug. 7, 2023. Ceja was on vacation and had borrowed a relative’s car.