Judge sentences two involved in 2020 Healdsburg drive-by shooting

A Sonoma County judge last week sentenced two men involved in a September 2020 drive by shooting near the Healdsburg Railroad Depot, according to the district attorney’s office.

Judge Shelly Averill sentenced Isaiah Antonio Torres, 18, to 10 years in state prison according to the terms of a plea deal struck with prosecutors. Torres pleaded no contest to a felony crime of assault with a semiautomatic firearm. Averill gave Botello-Barragan, who investigators determined was the driver, a suspended six-year prison sentence and instead placed him on two years of probation, with a year of jail time.

Investigators concluded that on Sept. 29, Torres leaned out the rear passenger window of a car and fired five shots over the roof towards a man seated at a picnic table in a grassy lot at the intersection of Fitch and Mason streets. The intended target ran, and Torres fired five more shots at him before the car sped away. None of Torres’s shots struck the man.

Prosecutors sought to send Botello-Barragan to prison for six years, according to the district attorney’s press release, arguing he was “just as culpable” as the shooter himself.

“Cases involving gun violence will be aggressively prosecuted, and significant sentences will be sought,” Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch said in a statement.

The shooting had gang roots, according to prosecutors — Botello-Barragan and Torres were affiliated with a criminal gang, while the man they chased and fired at was affiliated with another. As a condition of Botello-Barragan’s probation, the judge ordered him not to participate in gang activity.

There was insufficient evidence of wrongdoing to charge three juveniles — who were in the car during the shooting and a subsequent drive to Rohnert Park — with crimes, Chief Deputy District Attorney Spencer Brady, who prosecuted the case, said. A sixth person, David Saucedo-Solorio, 19, of Rohnert Park, pleaded no contest to a felony count of accessory to a crime. His sentencing is in April, Brady said.

You can reach Staff Writer Andrew Graham at 707-526-8667 or andrew.graham@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @AndrewGraham88