OXNARD : Man Gets 6 Years in Fatal Stabbing
A judge has sentenced an Oxnard man who admitted killing his ex-girlfriend’s son during a Christmas Day stabbing to six years in state prison.
The sentence handed down Tuesday by Ventura County Superior Court Judge Lawrence Storch was part of a plea agreement reached between lawyers for defendant Jose Jimenez and the district attorney’s office.
Prosecutors charged Jimenez with murder for the fatal stabbing of Isaias Guerrero Morales, 21. The victim was knifed in the yard of his family’s Campbell Way home.
But a jury last month acquitted the defendant of murder after the defense argued that Jimenez acted to ward off an attack by Guerrero.
Prosecutors then agreed to accept Jimenez’s plea to voluntary manslaughter after the jury could not reach a verdict on a charge of involuntary manslaughter. Part of that agreement called for the defendant to be sentenced to the six-year term instead of the 12-year sentence he could have received.
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