Man pleads to manslaughter, sentenced to time served following mistrial for first-degree murder

An Albuquerque man pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter on Wednesday, less than three months after a jury failed to reach a verdict at his trial in the 2020 shooting death of Raymond Lovato.

Jesus Torres, 34, was sentenced Wednesday to 784 days, or time served in jail, clearing the way for his release from the Metropolitan Detention Center, where he has been held since his arrest in September 2021.

“You get to go home when my brother doesn’t,” Lovato’s sister, Sonia Lovato, said at Torres’ sentencing hearing on Wednesday. “I have some consolation that Mr. Torres will be on record that he murdered my brother.”

In a brief statement before his sentencing, Torres said he prays for Lovato’s family but stopped short of apologizing.

“I understand that they are upset,” he said by video from jail. “I just want the truth.”

At Torres’ trial in September, 2nd Judicial District Judge Emeterio Rudolfo declared a mistrial after jurors failed to reach a verdict on a charge of first-degree murder in Lovato’s killing.

On Wednesday, Rudolfo said the mistrial likely played a role in the decision by prosecutors to offer Torres a plea agreement on a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.

“In my humble hands there is no power to impose justice,” Rudolfo told Lovato’s family Wednesday. “That’s up to God to determine.”

Torres’ attorney, Stefanie Gulley, did not immediately respond Wednesday to a phone message seeking comment.

Bernalillo County Sheriff’s deputies found Lovato fatally shot on Sept. 25, 2020, with six gunshot wounds to his chest, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court. Lovato was seated on a chair inside his mobile home near Paseo del Norte and Second NW.

In September 2021, more than a year after Lovato’s death, a fugitive task force captured Torres following an armed confrontation in a parking lot at Route 66 Casino.

At trial, the case against Torres relied heavily on phone and social media records that prosecutors said tracked his movements the day of Lovato’s killing.

Prosecutor Stephen Lane told jurors that cellphone tracking evidence showed Torres visited a gun store before he went to Lovato’s mobile home. Phone records also showed that Torres went to Lovato’s mobile home around the time neighbors heard gunshots at the residence, Lane said.