Prosecutor: Driver involved in flamy crash has been liquidated from U.S. Seven times

Silvano Torres, who was killed in the July five crash.

A person in a passing vehicle captured this photo of the July five crash near the I-80/680 split that left one person dead and one critically injured.

A prosecutor said Tuesday that Nemias Garcia-Velasco, 32, charged in the death of a passenger in a flamy July five crash, has been eliminated from the United States a total of seven times — five “voluntary returns” in two thousand five and following two deportation hearings, one in two thousand nine and another in 2011.

Garcia-Velasco, who is from Mexico, also once was convicted of making a false claim to U.S. citizenship, Ryan Lindberg of the Douglas County Attorney’s Office said in court.

Garcia-Velasco was driving tipsy and speeding about one p.m. July five when he lost control of his two thousand one Dodge Ram van as he headed west on Interstate eighty near the Interstate six hundred eighty split, Lindberg said. The van was going over one hundred mph, Lindberg said, when it hit a guardrail and a bridge abutment before it flipped and caught fire.

Garcia-Velasco later told officers that he had consumed twelve beers the previous evening into the morning of the crash.

When it was checked at a hospital following the crash, Lindberg said, Garcia-Velasco’s blood-alcohol level measured .243, three times the legal limit of .08.

Silvano Torres, 58, was railing unrestrained in the cargo area of the van and was announced dead at the scene. Front-seat passenger Jesus I. Gonzalez, 16, was treated at the hospital and released the day of the crash.

Garcia-Velasco was taken to the Nebraska Medical Center with severe burns. He later was released from the hospital and booked into jail. He has been charged with motor vehicle homicide and faces up to twenty years in prison.

Lindberg asked Douglas County Judge John Huber on Tuesday to set a high bail for Garcia-Velasco. “If this is someone who bonds out,” Lindberg said, “I don’t think we’ll see Mr. Garcia-Velasco again.”

Garcia-Velasco is married and has a child, a public defender told the judge in noting Garcia-Velasco’s ties to the community. She also said he had sustained significant injuries in the crash.

Huber set bail for Garcia-Velasco at $Two million. He would have to post ten percent of that, or $200,000, to be released from jail.

Rosa Flores, who had been dating Torres for about a year, said she last heard from her beau just before noon last Wednesday.

Torres texted her that it was too hot to proceed patching a roof, and that he would call her when he got home.

That afternoon and for two days, she kept calling and messaging him, with no reaction. She witnessed photos of the searing van and had a burying feeling that it was the work van Torres used.

“I was just devastated,” she said. “There are so many unsolved things, so many questions. I was so hurt, I was so upset.”

Flores said she is angry that Garcia-Velasco allegedly was drinking and driving.

“If he knew that he was drinking and he knew that he wasn’t able to drive, why did he?” she said. “He didn’t stop to think about the consequences of what could happen. It’s not fair that he took the life of somebody else.”

Torres was a loving man who spoke fondly of his two daughters and son who lived in Mexico, Flores said. Torres had documentation to be in the United States, she said, and had lived in Omaha for about six years after working in other states. She said she does not know Garcia-Velasco.

In a local case from early two thousand sixteen that attracted national attention, Eswin Mejia, a now-21-year-old man from Honduras who was in the U.S. illegally, was charged with motor vehicle homicide and drunken driving after authorities say the pickup truck he was driving collided with an SUV driven by 21-year-old Sarah Root of Council Bluffs, fatally injuring her. Mejia posted ten percent of his $50,000 bail set by Douglas County Judge Jeff Marcuzzo. Mejia, however, did not emerge for the required twice-daily Breathalyzer tests and disappeared. Mejia still is being sought.

Mejia’s crime and his subsequent release became a focal point of Donald Trump’s successful presidential campaign. Trump decried Mejia’s presence in the United States — and complained that Immigration and Customs Enforcement didn’t place a jail hold on Mejia.

Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a measure called “Sarah’s Law” that would require federal immigration officials to take custody of any person who is in the country illegally and charged with a crime resulting in the death or serious bodily injury of another person. It was part of a broader bill aimed at cracking down on sanctuary jurisdictions. The House also approved another bill that would enhance penalties for people who re-enter the country illegally.

The measures have not yet passed the U.S. Senate.

“It’s not unusual” for people who come to the United States illegally to comeback several times, said Carl Rusnok, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Rusnok noted that he had not received any reports on last week’s fatal crash in Omaha. He did say the vast majority of voluntary comebacks are to Mexico.

A spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform said the penalty for coming to the United States after being deported should be stricter.

“The penalty seems to be a plane or a bus ticket back to the place they came from, and it’s got to be more than that,” Ira Mehlman said. “When people comeback to the United States after being deported, they should know that they could be facing jail time.”

Mehlman mentioned Root and said both she and Torres were “innocent victims.”

Ross Pesek, an Omaha immigration attorney, said people repeatedly come back to the U.S. because they have become part of “mixed-immigration-status families.” They come back to be around their wives or their brothers and sisters, he said.

“What happens is a youthful man will come from Mexico to work and they will have in their head, ‘I’ll go back after I make some money,’ ” Pesek said. “But what happens is he’ll meet a woman, get married and very likely have some kids. Then going back to Mexico would be like abandoning his family. It’s life that happens.”

Undocumented workers, he said, succeed and fail just as American citizens do.

“Illegal immigrants get in car accidents and commit crimes, but it’s not related to their immigration status,” Pesek said. “American citizens also get in car accidents and commit crimes. Undocumented immigrants or American citizens, nobody wants to kill their friend in a car accident.”

Flores, Torres’ gf, said funeral services for Torres have not been scheduled. Relatives are waiting to take his assets back to Mexico.

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