OXNARD : Man Pleads Guilty to Manslaughter in Killing

An Oxnard man pleaded guilty Monday to voluntary manslaughter for killing his ex-girlfriend’s son on Christmas, and attorneys have recommended that he receive a six-year prison sentence.

The plea by 32-year-old Jose Jimenez comes two weeks after a jury acquitted him of murder but deadlocked on a lesser charge of manslaughter.

Prosecutors charged Jimenez with murder in the stabbing death of Isaias Guerrero Morales, 21. Guerrero was knifed in the yard of his family’s Campbell Way home.

Under Jimenez’s plea, prosecutors agreed to drop an allegation that he used a deadly weapon. They also agreed to recommend that Superior Court Judge Lawrence Storch sentence him to six years in prison, instead of the 12-year term he could have faced.

With credit for time already served and good behavior, Jimenez will probably be out of prison in 2 1/2 years, attorneys said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Peter D. Kossoris was unable to persuade the jury to convict Jimenez of murder. Storch declared a mistrial after the jury deadlocked 11 to 1 in favor of conviction on the manslaughter charge.

“I felt it was second-degree murder, but we had a fair trial before a fair jury,” Kossoris said Monday. “I’m a little disappointed for the victim’s family because they feel the defendant should have gotten more.”

Deputy Public Defender Joseph Villasana, Jimenez’s lawyer, said his client did not want to face a second trial and the possibility of being sentenced to 12 years on a conviction.

“My client is satisfied. He understands he could have gone to trial and lost,” Villasana said. “It’s a tragedy. He knows that. This is his (former) girlfriend’s son. He worked with him.”