Nobody left Judge Karen Sequino’s courtroom at Superior Court in Derby happy Tuesday afternoon.
Not Manuel Esteves, the Seymour man in tears on his way to jail after the judge sentenced him to serve four years in prison for being under the influence of drugs and alcohol while behind the wheel in an October 2012 crash that killed one of his best friends.
And not the dozens of friends and family members of both Esteves and the friend he killed, Korey Jordan of Naugatuck, who alternatively pleaded with Judge Sequino to either spare Esteves jail time or impose the maximum sentence under her discretion.
Background
In November, Esteves, 21, pleaded guilty before Judge Sequino to charges of second-degree manslaughter with a motor vehicle and second-degree assault with a motor vehicle.
According to an arrest warrant used to charge Esteves, the crash occurred in the early morning of Oct. 31, 2012, after a group of friends including Esteves and Jordan left a drinking party in the woods off Pheasant Drive and headed to McDonald’s.
The group traveled in two vehicles, and police said the pair of cars raced one another down South Main Street before Esteves lost control of his vehicle, crashed into a telephone pole and then collided with a cement wall.
According to the warrant, police noticed an odor of alcohol on Esteves’ breath at the crash scene, and later got a search record for his medical records, which showed a blood alcohol content of .156 as well as “positive readings for opiates and benzodiazepines.”
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Under the terms of a plea deal between prosecutors and Esteves’ lawyer, Christian Young, Esteves faced up to six years behind bars at his sentencing Tuesday.
‘I don’t remember my own son’s funeral’
Prosecutor Paul Gaetano asked Judge Sequino to hand down the maximum sentence under the terms of the deal, saying he made the six-years-to-serve offer because Esteves had no criminal record.
“He admitted to a significant history of alcohol and marijuana use at a young age, subsequently continued until the occurrence of this incident,” Gaetano said. “He has not completed any substance abuse treatment or intervention.”
“There are no winners,” Gaetano went on, quoting from a pre-sentence report compiled in the case by a probation officer. “The lives of the victims and their families will never be the same regardless of the sentence the defendant receives. The tragedy for the victim’s family cannot be undone.”
Jordan’s father, Kenneth Jordan, also asked the judge to give a six-year prison term to Esteves.
“I’m hurt, angry, and most of all, I’m disappointed,” he said. “Any time spent incarcerated is nothing compared to what myself and the rest of my family will experience for a lifetime.”
“The impact of my son’s death was and still is a huge blow to the entire family,” he said. “This isn’t something you just simply recover from. Korey was a well-loved man. It seemed like all of his friends were his best friends.”
“I think about Korey every day, and I smile at the pictures and wonderful memories he has left us,” Kenneth Jordan continued, his voice breaking. “But that always ends up with tears and pain. We all miss Korey immensely.”
Jordan’s mother, Kimberly Barbera-Spencer, said Korey was not only her son, but her best friend, and had just graduated from Emmett O’Brien Technical School’s HVAC program.
“I stand here a shell of the person I once was,” she told the judge while crying. “I don’t remember my own son’s funeral. I can’t recall at least nine to 10 months of my life due to this tragedy. I am still to this very minute in denial that my son has passed and I have not accepted that my baby is gone.”
“I know that mistakes are made, as well as bad decisions,” Barbera-Spencer said. “I’m confident Manuel did not set out that night to kill my son Korey. The fact is, he did.”
‘He is sick with grief’
Esteves’ lawyer said Esteves, like many others his age, did not realize the “reckless, dangerous” risks he was taking by getting behind the wheel while under the influence, which resulted in “a horrible, fatal crash.”
“Many of us here can recall and relate to the risky conduct of youth,” Young said. “I understand that what we’re talking about and judging here is something that unfortunately isn’t unprecedented, and something that we’ve all experienced if not engaged in. And unfortunately his risk-taking … caused the effect that we all never want to see as parents.”
Young said Esteves has had anxiety and trouble sleeping since the accident.
“He is guilt-ridden, and that’s not something that will go away,” he said. “He doesn’t stand before your honor with any sense of diverting (responsibility) anywhere else. He is sick with grief and has been over the pendency of this case, and will continue to be.”
Esteves’ friends and family members asked the judge to consider not just what Esteves did the night of the crash, but his whole life.
“The monster that he’s been made out to sound (like) because of this unfortunate situation is not who he is,” Chris Esteves, a cousin, said.
Esteves’ older sister, Jessica, said since she and her brother were little kids, he has volunteered to help children with disabilities.
At home, she said, he helps her father, who was himself paralyzed in a car accident, every day.
He’s the same way with his friends, she said.
“Manny will do anything to help them, even if it got him in trouble,” Jessica Esteves said. “As soon as he had a license, he was picking up any friend who called him, it didn’t matter what time it was or how far away it was, he would go get them. He offered our house as a place to stay anytime that they needed it.”
Esteves’ father, John, told the judge that his son “is not a kid that’s running around in the street, getting in trouble every night. He’s going to live with this the rest of his life.”
Given the chance to speak Tuesday, Esteves turned to face Jordan’s family.
“I truly am sorry, I am,” he said through tears.
“I think about Korey every night and every day,” he said. “There’s nothing I could do to express how truly sorry I am. Nothing is going to change, I can’t do anything about it, but I’m here accepting my responsibility for what I did.”
“We all made bad decisions,” he went on. “I made the biggest … I truly, truly am sorry. Please, I beg for your forgiveness.”
‘It’s like playing Russian roulette’
Before handing down her sentence, Judge Sequino told members of Esteves’ family that, though they will lose a son or brother or cousin temporarily, “just take a moment and comprehend the Jordan family has lost that forever.”
“There’s nothing I can say or do, there’s no sentence that’s ever going to make a difference in what has already happened,” the judge went on.
But she said her sentence had to be one that might deter others in the future from engaging in similar behavior.
“As soon as we give young people the ability to drive, we put potentially deadly force in their hands,” Judge Sequino said.
When “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll” are added to the mix, she said, “it’s like playing Russian roulette.”
“It’s going to cause a tragedy at one time or another, and that is where the message has to get across in terms of both our young people and adults,” the judge said. “That you’re only lucky, you’re not right.”
While the outcome was tragic, the judge noted Esteves had no prior criminal record, and is “hopefully young enough to be able to learn from his mistakes.”
She then sentenced Esteves to a 10-year prison sentence to be suspended after four years, to be followed by five years of probation.
While on probation, the judge ordered Esteves to seek substance abuse and mental health evaluation and treatment, submit to random urine tests for alcohol and drugs, donate $100 to a charity every year in Jordan’s name on the anniversary of the accident, stay out of bars and liquor stores, and perform 200 hours of community service.
