After four years of hearings and testimonies, the family, friends and coworkers of two people killed in a 2020 drunken driving crash filled the Adams County courtroom Thursday morning, anxiously awaiting a sentence.
Because of time limits and a separate, ongoing jury trial, only three people stepped up to testify, pleading for the judge to impose the maximum sentence.
A jury found 50-year-old Fructuoso Rosales-Cano guilty in November on two counts of vehicular homicide and two counts of driving under the influence with two or more prior convictions in the crash that killed Commerce City police detective Curt Holland and 31-year-old Francesca Dominguez.
On Thursday, Adams County District Court Judge Sean Finn sentenced Rosales-Cano to 10 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections for each death, to be served consecutively. That’s two years less on each count than the maximum sentence.
“I wish my dad was here to watch us grow, to watch me graduate karate classes and just to be here. I wish he was here to watch me go through school,” Holland’s 8-year-old daughter said during Thursday’s sentencing hearing. “Christmas and holidays are hard now because the whole family is not there. Daddy is missing.”
Sentences for the DUI charges were rolled into the vehicular homicide charges, Finn said. Rosales-Cano will also serve a mandatory three-year probation when released.
The 50-year-old was speeding on Colorado 2 near Turnberry Parkway on Oct. 16, 2020, when he swerved into oncoming traffic and crashed into Holland’s truck. The detective’s truck then spun and flipped, crushing a second car driven by Dominguez.
“He stopped my husband from ever coming home again,” Holland’s wife, Amanda, said. “He internally decapitated him and ripped holes in his heart. Losing Curt has been devastating and the pain that has been inflicted on our community and family is immeasurable.”
Curt Holland and Dominguez died instantly and Rosales-Cano was taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. At the time of the crash, Rosales-Cano’s blood alcohol level was .294, more than three times the legal limit.
Amanda Holland said the worst pain comes from knowing what will never happen. She said their son, who was an infant, never got to celebrate a birthday with his dad and will only know him through photos and videos.
“He never saw (our kids) start school,” she said. “He will never teach them to drive, he will never teach our son to shave, he will never walk our daughter down the aisle at her wedding and we will never get to grow old together.”
Dominguez’s sister, Rosemary Borincaj, also spoke at the sentencing hearing and read a letter to Rosales-Cano.
She said she doesn’t wish the man dead, but she hates him and can never forgive him for what he did.
“Franny was a creator, she created beauty in her art and she had so many plans,” Borincaj said. “She had so much art left to create. And you destroyed that. … You ruined our lives.”
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