A man who caused fatal injuries to another man during an altercation in Mission Bay received a six-year state prison sentence on Friday.
Lee Eduardo Orozco, 36, was sentenced on Nov. 21 for the 2023 death of 51-year-old Eric Nelson. Prosecutors say Nelson died in a hospital three weeks after Orozco beat him and pushed him onto sharp rocks.
Nelson had been fishing in the North Cove area when the attack happened, and he suffered broken ribs, a punctured lung, and broken jaw bones.
Authorities did not arrest Orozco in connection with Nelson’s death until December 2024. A motive for the attack remains unknown.
Orozco was originally charged with murder, but he later pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter.
Superior Court Judge Joan Weber told Orozco on Friday that he was “a very lucky man,” noting that the lone eyewitness to the incident was ultimately found not competent to testify.
Weber said she believed Orozco otherwise would have been convicted of first-degree murder and received a 25-year-to-life sentence, “which is what you deserved,” she said.
“This appeared to the court to be a premeditated murder of a helpless man and then you fled and left him there to suffer for another three weeks in a hospital bed,” the judge said.
In addition to the six-year term for Nelson’s death, Orozco received a three-year sentence for an assault committed while he was in county jail. The terms will run concurrently.
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