A woman was ordered Friday to spend a year in jail for helping her then-boyfriend hide a car after he drove into a 3-year-old girl and her mother, killing the child.
Rebeca Beltran, 27, was also placed on five years of formal probation, according to Senior Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Walker. A nearly four- year prison sentence was suspended so long as Beltran does not violate probation, the prosecutor said.
The driver, Carlos Antonio Parra, 23, accepted a plea deal March 6 from Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert Fitzgerald of nine years in prison for the hit-and-run collision that killed the toddler and left her mother permanently disabled, Walker said.
Beltran pleaded guilty in August 2013 to being an accessory after the fact and possession of a controlled substance.
She helped Parra hide the car involved in the Feb. 8, 2012, collision that killed Miranda Palacios and injured her mother, Lady Audree Rebecca Hernandez, and agreed to testify for the prosecution, Walker said.
Parra and Beltran had a child together, who was 2 years old at the time of their arrests.
Hernandez was pushing her daughter in a stroller across Gilbert Street in an unincorporated area near Anaheim about 6 p.m. when a car struck them at Guinida Lane.
The 1995 beige Nissan Maxima that struck the victims was registered to Beltran’s sister, according to investigators.
Parra called Beltran minutes after the collision, and she called police to report the car stolen. Authorities found the car a short distance away.
Police found a gram of methamphetamine in a closet when the defendants were arrested, prosecutors said.
Walker said Hernandez is permanently disabled from her injuries. She was treated for a broken pelvis and back, ankle and foot fractures and fluid build-up in her lungs, according to her mother.
— City News Service