A Los Angeles man who pleaded no contest in the deaths of a man who was set on fire in Pasadena and a man who was struck and killed in a hit-and-run crash in the Koreatown area of Los Angeles has been sentenced to a potential life term in state prison.
Jeovani Pluma, 24, was sentenced Friday to 25 years to life in state prison following his no-contest plea to first-degree murder for the death of Ulises Nieto-Cabrera, 30, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
Pluma was also sentenced to an additional two years and eight months in state prison for his conviction in January on hit-and-run charges stemming from an early morning crash on April 26, 2022, that killed Leonidas Accip Serech, 39, and injured the victim’s brother as they rode their bicycles to their jobs at a bakery.
Pluma pleaded no contest Friday to an additional count — voluntary manslaughter –that was reduced from murder in connection with Serech’s death, but his sentence on that charge will run at the same time as his 25-year-to-life term on the murder charge involving Nieto-Cabrera’s death, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Jurors had deadlocked on the most serious charges against Pluma, who had been awaiting a retrial before he entered his plea.
Nieto-Cabrera, described by police as an El Salvador native, was found on New Year’s Day 2021 in the 700 block of Rockwood Road in Pasadena on New Year’s Day in 2021. He died of thermal injuries that day after being taken to a hospital, according to records from the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office.
The motive for that attack is unknown.
Pluma has remained behind bars since his arrest in 2022.