Santa Rosa Woman Gets 6 Years In Drunk Driving Death
SANTA ROSA (CBS SF) - A Santa Rosa woman was sentenced to six years in prison in Sonoma County Superior Court Wednesday morning for the death of a man who was killed when he fell from the bed of the truck she was driving.
Rubi Ann Martinez, 33, was sentenced for gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated. She pleaded no contest to the charge last month.
Martinez was driving her 1996 GMC truck north on U.S. Highway 101 in Santa Rosa on Dec. 22 when Enrique Ramirez Alvarez, 21, of Windsor, fell out of the truck bed and onto the highway, California Highway Patrol officials said.
A passing motorist found his body at about 1:40 a.m. near the Mendocino Avenue overpass, CHP Officer Jon Sloat said.
Sloat said Martinez knew her friend Alvarez had fallen out the truck but did not stop to help him or call authorities.
The death was initially thought to be a homicide, and the CHP notified Santa Rosa police.
When an autopsy determined that a puncture wound in Alvarez's right thigh was from a compound fracture and not a gunshot wound, the CHP took over the death investigation.
After the sentencing, Martinez's daughter, Maria Arriaga, 17, of Santa Rosa, said the other people riding in the truck's cab also should have been prosecuted.
"If my mom is the only one charged, it's not justice. They should be in court, too," she said.
"The others could have helped. They had cell phones too," Arriaga said.
Alvarez and her mother were friends, and everyone in the truck, including Alvarez, was intoxicated, she said.
"She never had any intention of that happening," Arriaga said.
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