Man Sentenced to 9 Years in Fatal Stabbing

Gin Darras told state District Court Judge Stephen Pfeffer that she felt so awful following her son’s murder that if she could have donated her heart to keep him alive, she would have.

She told Pfeffer that she rejected the news that 32-year-old Tupac-Amaru Leyba, of Ribera, her only child, had died after a man stabbed him in the chest in September 2011. Instead, she kept calling and sending text messages to her son’s cellphone, asking him to please answer.

She was in court Friday asking Pfeffer to sentence her son’s murderer, 25-year-old Matthew Sanchez, to the maximum sentence possible for the charges of second-degree murder and tampering with evidence. Sanchez was convicted by a jury on Aug. 17 and faced a maximum sentence of 18 years on the two charges.

“I believe he has had enough play time,” Darras said. “He needs to do the maximum time.”

But Pfeffer sentenced Sanchez to all but eight years of the maximum sentence. With one year of presentence confinement credit, Sanchez could be free in nine years. He could also earn good-time credit during his sentence, but at a reduced rate – 15 percent of the time he serves – because of the violent nature of his crime.

Upon his release, he will be on probation for five years, according to Deputy District Attorney Tim Williams.

Prosecutors argued during the trial that the Santa Fe killing happened when Sanchez stabbed Leyba in the heart in a dispute over drugs. Leyba’s family disputed that claim early in the investigation, stating that Leyba had not done drugs in several years prior to the killing.

Sanchez’s defense attorney, Dan Marlowe, said Sanchez picked up a kitchen knife at a home where Leyba, Sanchez and others were hanging out, because he was afraid. Marlowe argued that Leyba was stabbed when he ran at his client around a car and collided with him.

Sanchez, who said he had a young daughter whom he feared would grow to hate him while he was serving time, told Pfeffer and the family he was sorry for Leyba’s death. Sanchez reiterated, however, that he was afraid and protecting himself. He said he stabbed Leyba to keep him from attacking and didn’t know how badly Leyba was wounded.

“It was only, like, a 3-inch knife. He was one of my friends … I am not a murderer. … Please forgive me. I didn’t mean to take his life,” Sanchez said. Sanchez previously told police he stabbed Leyba because Leyba was threatening him with a hatchet. Leyba’s mother said her son never owned a hatchet. Following the hearing, she denied that her son and his killer were ever friends.

Pfeffer said he would have sentenced Sanchez to the maximum time possible if he had known whether Sanchez understood how seriously Leyba was injured when he left the scene of the stabbing. But with the information he had, Pfeffer said he did not want to “throw away the key” on Sanchez.

He wanted to give Sanchez the opportunity to do better upon his eventual release or face the consequence of serving more time.

“You’ll throw away the key yourself,” Pfeffer said.

Sanchez has a pending case on a separate incident before Pfeffer on felony charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and tampering with evidence.