The man charged with killing a Broomfield teen and his mother in a Dec. 12 crash while drunken driving was waiting for a jail bed from a recent alcohol-related driving conviction when he crashed into the pair’s vehicle, according to the 20th Judicial District Attorney’s Office.
Jose Menjivar, who also goes by Jose Guadalupe Menjivar-Alas, had also been deported from the U.S. four times before the crash, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson said.
He is charged with vehicular homicide and driving under the influence in the deaths of Riordan and Melissa Powell in a crash near Broomfield High School.
Court records show Menjivar had four previous alcohol-related driving offenses stemming from incidents going back to 2007 in Boulder County and had been sentenced in the most recent case just four days before the Broomfield crash.
He pleaded guilty to two charges of driving ability impaired and one charge of driving under the influence, as well as a harassment charge, District Attorney spokesperson Shannon Carbone said in an email.
Prosecutors argued Menjivar should be sentenced to a year in jail in that case, Carbone said, but the judge, Zak Malkinson according to court records, sentenced him to work release and probation and allowed Menjivar to wait for a bed out of custody.
“The prosecutor correctly believed this defendant was a danger to the community,” Carbone said. “Instead, the Judge ordered 365 days of work release. The sentence, in addition to work release, included two years of probation and other requirements. The Court allowed the defendant to wait out-of-custody for a bed in the work release program — over our office’s objection.”
In work release programs, inmates stay in jails except when authorized to leave for work.
The judge at Menjivar’s sentencing noted he had served 100 days in jail leading up to the sentencing and tested sober “for a significant period of time,” Carbone said. “Those are significant factors, but our office still fought for straight jail time to be imposed immediately.”
Online court records show Menjivar previously failed to appear in court multiple times, leading to the case being drawn out over seven years before he pled guilty to a lesser charge of driving while ability impaired in June 2023.
The sentence was 365 days work release on each case to run concurrent to each other, “over our office’s objection,” Carbone said.
Four days after the sentencing, while waiting for the work release bed, Broomfield police say Menjivar got drunk and drove twice the speed limit near a high school and crashed into Riordan and Melissa Powell’s vehicle, killing them.
Steve Kotecki, a public affairs officer with ICE’s Denver field office, said Menjivar had also been removed from the U.S. four times since 2009.
“ICE records show that (Menjivar) has been previously removed and has no regard for immigration law,” Kotecki said. “As part of its routine operations, ICE targets and arrests noncitizens who commit crimes and other individuals who have violated our nation’s immigration laws. All noncitizens in violation of U.S. immigration law may be subject to arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removed from the United States, regardless of nationality.”
An immigration judge issued a final order of removal for Menjivar on April 14, 2009, Kotecki said.
His removals from the U.S. were in June 2009, June 2012, November 2014 and January 2015.
In connection to the Broomfield crash, ICE Denver lodged an immigration detainer with Broomfield County on Dec. 18, 2023, Kotecki said.
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Updated 2:52 p.m. Jan. 17, 2023: This story has been updated to correct the name of the judge who imposed sentence on Jose Menjivar in a previous DUI case.
