Superior Court Judge Omar Rodriguez ruled April 28 that there was sufficient evidence to arraign Hollister resident Jessica Chacon Aviles to stand trial in the Nov. 19, 2020, felony hit-and-run that resulted in the death of Nikko Espinoza.
While District Attorney Joel Buckingham recommended that Chacon Aviles stand trial, her defense attorney Roland Lee Soltesz countered that there was no proof of a crime because she was trying to escape a situation where she was the victim of violence. She originally appeared in court Dec. 21, 2022, and pleaded not guilty, according to Buckingham.
Rodriguez set Chacon Aviles’s arraignment hearing for May 18.
Hollister Police Officer Nicholes Rudolfs testified that after Hollister police received a 911 call on Nov. 19, he arrived at the scene at 2:09 a.m. and found a male laying in the road at East Park and McCray Streets near an apartment complex.
According to an HPD press release, officers gave medical aid to Espinoza until Hollister Fire Department and AMR personnel arrived to take over life saving efforts. Espinoza was life-flighted to a local trauma hospital where he later died from his injuries.
Rudolfs said the 911 caller and her boyfriend told him that the boyfriend had found Espinoza lying on the road and then drove to 911 caller’s home at about a block away. The boyfriend then took the caller back to the scene and that’s when called 911. They both left before police arrived. Rudolfs said he determined that Espinoza was bleeding and still alive when the boyfriend found him.
Detective Thomas Torres testified that in interviewing Chacon Aviles, who was arrested six months after the incident, she told him that she and Espinoza were “in a dating relationship.”
“She said she was with him that night (Nov. 19) and she believed he was intoxicated and possibly on drugs because she knew him to be a cocaine user,” Torres said. “She described his behavior as erratic [and] a verbal argument ensued between the two of them. She was driving in an area where an ex-boyfriend had lived and that seemed to ignite the argument further.”
Even though Chacon Aviles said she felt unsafe, Torres said she and Espinoza returned to her apartment on East Park where her son was present. Using three video clips with time stamps of Nov. 19 on her phone as evidence, Torres said the argument continued and Espinoza was shown to be angry and threatened to break the phone, which Torres said he believed, but could not confirm, was being held by her son as he recorded the argument.
Torres also said Chacon Aviles told him that Espinoza that night broke a mirror and threw pieces of it at her. For an unexplained reason, she said Espinoza told her son to call Chacon Aviles’ mother and tell her to come to the home.
When the mother arrived, Torres concurred with defense attorney Soltesz that “she wanted to get away from Nikko and she exited through the window of the apartment and ran away.” After Espinoza allegedly jumped on the car, “at some point in time he got off the hood of the car and she said it looked like he got away? But she didn’t know exactly what happened to him when he got off the car, correct?” Soltesz asked.
“That’s was what she said,” Torres responded.
“And then she proceeded to drive away at that time,” Soltesz asked, and Torres agreed. “She told you she feared for life. Didn’t she tell you that she was aware that Nikki, in the past, was charged with murder and she was fearful of him.”
Torres said that was true.
Espinoza was arrested in August 2017 in connection with a Hollister homicide. San Benito County Superior Court Judge Steven Sanders dismissed the charges in January 2018.
Soltesz continued his cross examination of Torres: “She [Chacon Avilas’ mother] said she saw Jessica get to her car safe, but Nikko ran down the stairs for the parking lot? And she also said that she saw Nikko run behind the vehicle and then she went back to Isaac (Chacon Avilas’ son) and was watching him at the same time, but she also told you that she saw Jessica back up slowly and as she was driving forward, that’s when Nikko jumped on the car? And she saw Jessica start driving away. She felt that she was safe and she went back in the apartment to calm Isaac?”
Torres said yes to each question.
During Buckingham’s questioning, Torres said he was contacted on June 16, 2022, by the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department concerning Alejandro Sernas, who worked with Chacon Aviles where she was the manager, who wanted to get a plea deal for his DUI charge by giving information that Chacon Aviles allegedly told him about the incident.
Torres said Sernas was recorded on a deputy’s body camera saying Chacon Aviles told him a couple different versions of what happened on that night, including one that she also told Torres: that she had escaped from her apartment by going through a window, and was backing her car out of the parking lot when Espinoza jumped on the hood and that he was injured when she drove away. In another version, Sernas said she told him Espinoza was hanging onto the open front passenger door as she was driving in reverse at a high rate of speed.
Referring to body camera video, Torres said Sernas told the deputy that Chacon Aviles “intended to run over Nikko, but did not intend to kill him.”
In their summations, Buckingham said the evidence presented supported the case against Chacon Aviles on a hit-and-run driving charge that resulted in the death or bodily harm.
Soltesz argued that, “It’s clear that she was the victim of violence that evening. The District Attorney’s own evidence showed that she escaped from the apartment through the window, that Mr. Espinoza chased after her, [that] he jumped on the car.”
“It’s our contention that it’s not a hit-and-run,” he continued. “He jumped on the car of his own accord and fell down. Basically, it [autopsy] shows a head injury and he has a bunch of abrasions on his body. That’s not consistent with being struck by an automobile. It’s consistent with falling down.”
Related BenitoLink stories:
Suspect appears in court in hit-and-run case | BenitoLink
Hollister woman facing hit-and-run charges gets February court date | BenitoLink
Family of Nikko Espinoza seeks answers | BenitoLink
HPD arrests homicide suspect | BenitoLink
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