A man who pleaded guilty to driving drunk in a crash that killed his female passenger was sentenced to 10 days in jail in Austin, Texas by a district attorney's office led by a George Soros style prosecutor which has drawn criticism from law enforcement.
Leo Anthony Carreto-Lopez, 19, was originally charged with intoxication manslaughter in May after drunk driving at a high speed before crashing into a tree in a fiery accident that killed his 19-year-old passenger Teresa Gonzales.
Court records reviewed by Fox News Digital show that the office of Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza negotiated a plea deal with Lopez that sentenced him to a misdemeanor and 10 days in jail in a move that has drawn criticism from law enforcement.
"Another example of Travis County prosecutors going easy on violent criminals," the Austin Police Association, a union representing more than 1,800 Austin police officers, tweeted in response to the sentence. "Victims lives are marginalized. Where is the justice for the families & loved ones of the victim?"
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Leo Anthony Carreto-Lopez plead guilty to driving while intoxicated earlier this month (Austin Police Department)
Travis County District Attorney Joe Garza, who ran for office on a "criminal justice reform" platform and has implemented new sentencing guidelines in accordance with that platform, has been criticized by some for high-profile cases where his office has released potentially dangerous criminals back onto the streets.
Last year, a man who was arrested in 2019 for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon was charged with committing two murders while free on bond via Garza’s office without any bail conditions such as a GPS monitor or curfew.
Dennis Farris, president of the Austin Police Retired Officer's Association, told Fox News Digital that the 10-day sentence for Lopez after someone was killed in a drunk driving crash that he caused is "unfathomable."
Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza (Travis County DA Website)
"That’s the way Travis County is," Farris explained. "That’s the way we are with people being arrested for murder and everything else being let out because this DA doesn’t believe that just because you’re arrested for a crime you should sit in jail."
Garza was backed by progressive billionaire George Soros’s financial network during his campaign for office in 2020.
George Soros contributed $652,000 to the Texas Justice & Public Safety PAC in the months leading up to the 2020 Travis County DA election, according to campaign finance records. That same PAC spent almost $1 million on digital and mail advertisements to help Garza’s campaign.
"When the district attorney ran for office he was bankrolled by Soros groups and he made very clear that he wanted to pursue the typical ‘reimagine justice’ policies and that's exactly what he's doing," Austin personal injury attorney Adam Loewy, who handles cases where individuals are injured or killed by drunk drivers, told Fox News Digital in response to the 10-day sentence given to Lopez.
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George Soros, founder and chairman of the Open Society Foundations, attends the European Council On Foreign Relations Annual Meeting in Paris. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, File)
According to the Texas state criminal statute, intoxication manslaughter is a second degree felony that carries a prison term of between 2 and 20 years.
Loewy says it is "common knowledge" in the Travis County courthouse that Garza’s office is opposed to prison sentences and will do "anything it can do" to reduce the prison population.
"One way of doing that is to not send people to prison when they deserve to be prison," Loewy said. "So this is all part of the plan. This is all part of the reimagined justice approach and we're seeing the real life effect of it."
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Garza’s office did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment from Fox News Digital.
In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Soros defended progressive policies implemented by DAs like Garza across the country and pointed the blame at Republicans for rising crime rates in major cities.
