SAN ANTONIO – A Bexar County jury sentenced a man Thursday to 26 years in prison for a violent DWI crash that claimed the life of a woman in 2022.
William James Ballestero, 34, was found guilty Wednesday in the 379th District Court on a murder charge.
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Ballestero was initially charged with intoxication manslaughter, but the charge was upgraded to murder because of two prior DWI convictions.
Trial testimony revealed that on March 8, 2022, Ballestero drank at least 10 beers before he got behind the wheel of his lifted pickup truck, ran three red lights and broadsided a Honda Civic at 61 mph without braking at the intersection of Pat Booker and Live Oak Crossing. Cameron Celeste Jacobson, 21, the driver of the Honda, died at the scene.
Ballestero was uncooperative at the scene, and a blood draw showed him to have a blood-alcohol level of nearly twice the legal limit, according to trial testimony.
Because the jury determined that Ballestero’s pickup was a deadly weapon, he will have to serve at least 13 years before being eligible for parole.