Colorado man receives 24-year sentence for crash that killed mother, son
A Broomfield man with five prior DUI arrests received a prison sentence Friday for his sixth offense, a crash last December which killed a mother and her teenage son.
A judge ordered Jose Menjivar, 38, to two dozen years in the Colorado Department of Corrections. Menjivar now heads to courtrooms in Denver and Boulder where he violated terms of his probation in two previous DUI cases.
On December 12, 2023, Menjivar's Toyota Tundra crossed double-yellow centerlines and sped past other southbound cars approaching the intersection of Main Street and Miramonte Boulevard in Broomfield. Menjivar was driving between 80 and 100 miles per hour in the 40mph zone, according to witnesses statements collected later from other drivers.
In the intersection, Menjivar's pickup truck hit a Mazda SUV driven by 46-year-old Broomfield resident Melissa Powell. The impact sent Powell's car off the roadway where its passenger side collided with a tree.
Powell died at the scene. Her passenger, her 16-year-old son, Riordan, passed away at a nearby hospital half an hour after the crash.
Menjivar was also injured and taken to a hospital. A blood draw conducted there measured Menjivar blood-alcohol content (BAC) at .249, more than three times the legal limit for Colorado drivers' alcohol impairment.
Crash investigators with the Broomfield Police Department found two empty beer cans on the floorboard of the Tundra and an opened case of beer in its back seat. Several cans in the case were missing.
Menjivar had borrowed the pickup from his brother three days earlier, according to his arrest affidavit.
Previously, Menjivar had received two DUIs in Boulder County in 2007 and another in Aurora (Adams County) in 2009. He received short jail terms (the longest being 45 days), community service and probation terms in those sentences.
At the time of the crash, Menjivar was on probation for a 2014 DUI in Denver and a 2016 DUI in Boulder. He was sentenced in the Denver case to 70 days in jail, two years probation and 60 hours community service and fines, but violated the terms of his sentence and repeated missed court dates. Four warrants for his arrest were issued since his sentencing, according to online court records.
In the Boulder case, Menjivar was sentenced to 365 days of work release, which is a part-time stay in jail only allowing an inmate to leave during hours of employment. Menjivar also received two years probation, 60 hours community service and $2,700 in fines. However, the judge delayed assigning Menjivar to the work release portion of that sentence until a space became available in the Boulder jail's work release program.
That sentence was handed down four days before the fatal crash.
Riordan Powell was a student at Broomfield High School. The crash happened adjacent to the school's baseball and soccer fields. Several students heard the impact, according to social media comments on the police department's Facebook page, and were traumatized by its aftermath.
Riordan Powell had "nascent interest" in forensic science, as stated in an online obituary. Because of her son's interest, his mother had decided prior to the crash to donate her body to forensic science upon her death.
