Yilver Ponce will now spend the next 35 years behind bars.
Ponce, who also goes under the alias Guillermo Moradel, pleaded guilty to his first DWI in St. Tammany Parish in 2000.
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However, because of a law requiring judges to give offenders the opportunity to attend rehabilitation before giving them jail sentences, Ponce only spent approximately 60 days in jail before being released back on the streets.
However, since then, Rick Wood, spokesman for District Attorney Walter Reed, the school of thought has changed from wanting to rehabilitate DWI offenders to wanting to get them off the streets.
He said the organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving was instrumental in getting this message out, and in July 2005, then Gov. Kathleen Blanco signed into a new law allowing state judges a little more leeway when it comes to sentences DWI offenders.
Wood said the previous law read that judges “shall” suspend all but 60 days of a sentence if an offender has not yet participated in a substance abuse treatment program.
The new law changed the word “shall” to “may.”
The change of that one word opened the door for District Judge Peter Garcia and retired District Judge Donald Fendlason to sentence Ponce to serious jail time.
In February 2008, received his seventh DWI.
When came before Garcia in July of that year, Garcia revoked his probation on Ponce’s sixth offense and sentenced him to serve his originally suspended 20-year sentence.
On Oct.20, Fendlason tacked on another 15 years for his seventh offense.�
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