Driver sent to prison for fatal wreck

RALEIGH -- A local painter found out this afternoon that he will spend the next 13 to 16 years in prison for a fatal wreck that killed three people in May after his van slammed into their car while he was driving drunk and heading the wrong way on Raleigh’s Beltline.

Francisco Javier Martinez, 30, an illegal immigrant who came to the country five years ago, received the prison sentence this afternoon after he pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree murder and two counts of felony injury.

Martinez had been drinking with friends in the hours before the 4:30 a.m. crash on May 25, his attorney Charles Christopher said.

He was headed home to his wife and three children when he got on the Beltline near Rock Quarry Road going the wrong way. A police officer spotted him and tried to stop him but, before that happened, Martinez’s van slammed into a Lexus. Martinez had a blood alcohol content of 0.17, more than twice the legal limit to drive of 0.08.

Six hours before the wreck, Martinez was pulled over by a Raleigh police officer and found that his license had just expired a few days earlier. The officer did not detect any alcohol on Martinez at that time and released him, said Wake assistant district attorney Jeff Cruden.

The wreck took the lives of two brothers Guillermo Jimenez, 26, and Dagoberto Jimenez, 21, as well as the life of Santiago Pascual Tellez, 14, of Knightdale. Two other passengers in the Lexus were hurt but recovered from their injuries.

Guillermo Jimenez, who was driving the Lexus, had a blood alcohol content of 0.05 while Santiago, the 14-year-old, had enough alcohol his system to register a 0.14, Cruden said.

Santiago’s family said they didn’t know he had been drinking that night. They remembered him as a teenager who was popular at Durant Middle School. Santiago came to the United States from Mexico with his family when he was 4 and dreamed of one day being a police officer.

The deaths of the Jimenez brothers was especially hard on their families, marking the second time a loved one was killed in a traffic accident. In 2005, then 14-year-old Jose Jimenez, brother of the two men, was killed when the family's car broke down on Interstate 540 and another vehicle slammed into them.