Gilberto Sotelo, wearing sunglasses in a family photo, was killed in a hit and run crash Aug. 7 along a highway in Riverside County, Calif. Giovanni Ceja, right, a corporal with the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, was arrested and convicted of second-degree murder on Jan. 30. (Sotelo family picture via GoFundMe; Ceja mug shot from the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office)
A judge sentenced a now-former Texas jail detention deputy to 15 years to life in prison for striking a man on the side of a California road and fleeing the scene, prosecutors said.
Giovanni Ceja, who at the time of the crash worked as a deputy for the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office in San Antonio, was convicted on Tuesday of second-degree murder in the death of 38-year-old Gilberto Sotelo, according to the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors said Ceja, 31, was intoxicated during the crash that occurred on the southbound shoulder of Interstate 215, just north of La Cadena Drive, early in the morning of Aug. 7, 2023. Ceja was on vacation and had borrowed a relative’s car.
California Highway Patrol found pieces of the vehicle at the scene and tied them to the car Ceja was driving.
Sotelo’s family members told Fox affiliate KTTV that Sotelo’s Chevrolet Silverado had run out of gas and he was filling it up on the side of the road when he was hit, sending his body over 30 feet into the side of an embankment. Someone then stole his wallet and phone, according to the TV station.
Sotelo was great at fixing cars and was always at a junkyard looking for parts, his brother said.
“He’d be out there in a minute to help somebody out,” Jesus Sotelo told the outlet. “That’s just the kind of person he was.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, Gilberto Sotelo was driving back from visiting his sister’s grave. She was killed in a car accident in 2015.
“Ironically, they both died in crashes on the freeway,” Jesus Sotelo told the newspaper. “I told our mom. I don’t think she could have handled the police knocking on her door a second time.”
A GoFundMe page raised over $40,000 for funeral arrangements and to help the victim’s wife raise their children, which range in age from 2 to 18.
After the incident, Ceja returned to work as if nothing happened, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said. He was in his uniform when he was arrested, according to the sheriff. He was taken to a neighboring county’s jail where he was later extradited to California.
“To hear that this person took somebody’s life that was just putting gas in his car on the side of the road, it’s embarrassing, it’s disgraceful, it’s disgusting to know that this happened,” Salazar told reporters after Ceja’s arrest.
Ceja joined the department in 2018 and worked in the jail. He was fired after his arrest.
