SAN ANTONIO – In late October, a jury found 57-year-old Ricky Cantu guilty of murder in the death of Rudy Borrego.
Cantu chose to have Judge Catherine Torres-Stahl, rather than the jury, assess his punishment.
After a sentencing hearing on Thursday, she ordered that Cantu serve 40 years in prison.
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Prosecutor Quinton Malloy had asked for a life sentence.
Cantu's attorney, Robert Gebbia, asked for mercy and a 25-year sentence.
Testifying during Thursday's hearing, Borrego's widow recalled the last time she saw her husband.
“I kissed him on the cheek and I told him to ‘hurry up and come back,’ and he kissed me back,” Gloria Martinez-Borrego said.
Three hours later on that Feb. 24, 2018, evening, Martinez-Borrego said she was at the morgue to identify her husband’s body.
“Why?” she sobbed. “He was almost home; he was already coming home.”
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The crash occurred in the 100 block of South Laredo Street, just blocks from the family’s near West Side home.
Borrego said that the couple's three children accompanied her to the hospital that night.
She recalled their 12-year-old son crying when he saw his father's body.
“Why did you have to go on that motorcycle?” she said the child screamed. “Why did you have to? Look at you now. You’re not here.”
Martinez-Borrego said, "That was the hardest thing to hear."
She testified that the tragedy has also taken a financial toll on the family since they were forced to use the money they had been saving for a new home to pay for her husband’s funeral.
Martinez-Borrego said that she is facing eviction from their home at the end of this month and her car is being repossessed.