{"id":64544,"date":"2025-11-22T01:04:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T01:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/64544\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T01:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T01:04:07","slug":"judge-tells-man-hes-very-lucky-to-get-shorter-sentence-for-mission-bay-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/64544\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge tells man he&#8217;s &#8216;very lucky&#8217; to get shorter sentence for Mission Bay death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timesofsandiego.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/new-superior-courthouse.jpg?ssl=1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/new-superior-courthouse.jpg\" alt=\"San Diego Superior Court not guilty plea\" class=\"wp-image-63674\" style=\"width:743px;height:auto\"  \/><\/a>San Diego Superior Court.  (File photo by Chris Stone\/Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n<p>A man who pled guilty to causing another man\u2019s death after an altercation in Mission Bay was sentenced Friday to six years in state prison.<\/p>\n<p>Lee Eduardo Orozco, 36, was sentenced for the 2023 death of Eric Nelson, 51, who died in a hospital three weeks after prosecutors say he was beaten and pushed onto sharp rocks.<\/p>\n<p>Nelson, who had been fishing in the North Cove area when the attack occurred, sustained injuries that included broken ribs, a punctured lung and broken jaw bones.<\/p>\n<p>Orozco was not arrested in connection with Nelson\u2019s death <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofsandiego.com\/crime\/2024\/12\/13\/suspect-arrested-more-than-year-after-victim-died-following-mission-bay-beating\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">until December 2024<\/a>. A motive for the attack remains unknown.<\/p>\n<p>Orozco was initially charged with murder, but later pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sdcourt.ca.gov\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Superior Court<\/a> Judge Joan Weber told Orozco on Friday that he was \u201ca very lucky man\u201d and referenced that a lone eyewitness to the attack was ultimately deemed not competent enough to testify in the case.<\/p>\n<p>Weber said she believed Orozco otherwise would have been convicted of first-degree murder and received a 25-year-to-life sentence, \u201cwhich is what you deserved,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis appeared to the court to be a premeditated murder of a helpless man and then you fled and left him there to suffer for another three weeks in a hospital bed,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n<p>Along with the six-year prison term for Nelson\u2019s death, Orozco was sentenced to three years for an assault that took place while Orozco was in county jail. The three-year term will be served concurrently with the six-year sentence.<\/p>\n<p>READ NEXT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Diego Superior Court. (File photo by Chris Stone\/Times of San Diego) A man who pled guilty to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[38778,38779,38780,1103,38781,74,76,75,2897,15704],"class_list":["post-64544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-guilty-plea","tag-judge-joan-weber","tag-lee-eduardo-orozco","tag-mission-bay","tag-north-cove","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-sentencing","tag-voluntary-manslaughter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}