Driver sentenced in River of Lights hit-and-run death

An Albuquerque man was sentenced to 25 years in prison in a 2021 hit-and-run crash that left a child dead and the boy’s father seriously injured outside the River of Lights.

District Court Judge Brett Loveless handed down the sentence for 30-year-old Sergio Almanza on Tuesday.

In September, jurors found Almanza was drunk when he ran a red light in an off-road vehicle and struck 7-year-old Pronoy Bhattacharya and his father as the family left the holiday event at Central and Tingley.

While the father survived with serious injuries, the boy — a second grader at Georgia O’Keeffe Elementary School — died at the scene.

Afterward, Almanza fled and tried to hide the vehicle at a friend’s house. He briefly fled to Mexico before being arrested in December 2022.

At trial, Almanza was found guilty of DWI-related vehicular homicide and great bodily harm by vehicle, leaving the scene of an accident, tampering with evidence and driving an off-highway vehicle on a paved street.

Ahmad Assed, Almanza’s attorney, said Tuesday that he and Almanza disagreed with the sentence.

“We sought a lower sentence based on legitimate circumstances and factual arguments that we feel justly necessitated a lower sentence,” he said in a statement. “From the inception of this trial, we told the court Mr. Almanza did not contest his actions and wanted to take responsibility early. Our disagreement with the prosecutors then, and continues today, is based on whether Mr. Almanza was guilty of the DWI.”

Assed said he will meet with Almanza to decide whether to appeal the sentence.

“This was an incredibly difficult case. One the entire community felt,” he said. “The loss of this precious child and the manner in which he was killed will be burned in our minds and hearts for a long time.”

On Tuesday, the boy’s mother told Loveless, “Every moment of my day is spent thinking about Pronoy. I want Pronoy to know, wherever he may be, that justice was served today.”

Attorney General Raúl Torrez said, in a statement Tuesday, that Pronoy “was a special little boy who will be missed by all who knew him.”

“Our thoughts are with his family today and I hope they find some comfort in our steadfast commitment to hold offenders like Sergio Almanza accountable for their actions and to do everything in our power to make this community safe for all our families,” said Torrez, who was Bernalillo County District Attorney when the case began.

In a sentencing memorandum filed Monday, prosecutors listed Almanza’s “abysmal driving history” with 10 citations he was given between 2009 and 2021, which included speeding, reckless driving, not having a license and not using headlights, among other violations.

Furthermore, according to the memorandum, Almanza has “engaged in criminal fraud while in custody” at the Metropolitan Detention Center — selling a fellow inmate’s food stamps to family members.

“This behavior is of great importance because it shows a continued disregard for the law,” according to the memorandum, which then summed up its argument for a stiff sentence.

Prosecutors said Almanza did not try to help the boy or his father and “cowardly” hid and disguised the vehicle while monitoring the situation on the news before fleeing the country “after it was clear he was going to be implicated.”

“Defendant’s request for leniency should not be granted,” according to the memorandum. “The Bhattacharya family has received a life sentence without Pronoy.”