A Hammond man on Thursday was sentenced to four months in prison after pleading guilty to one count of felony reentry to the United States.
U.S. District Judge Gretchen Lund also sentenced Juan Salinas-Santos, 29, to one year of supervised release to be served either when he’s released or if he reenters the country after his likely being deported. The supervised release, per new guidelines recently issued by U.S. Department of Justice, should be considered “added measure of deterrence,” Lund said.
The maximum sentence for which Salinas-Santos was eligible was two years, though Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Sohn asked for six months. He asked for six months as part of general deterrence, he said.
“With all due respect to (U.S. District) Judge (Phillip) Simon, I do believe general deterrence needs to be considered; it will tell you, ‘You’re not just going back, you’re spending time in prison,” Sohn said.
Salinas-Santos’s attorney, Roxanne Mendez Johnson, called the idea of general deterrence “laughable.”
“I struggled with what I was going to ask for; I want time served, but you’ve never given that, so I’m asking for a more measured approach,” Mendez Johnson said. “My client understands he’s not supposed to be here but has done the best he can.
“While deterrence is needed, what specifically happens to (a defendant) will affect only them. People have their reasons for coming here. Specific deterrence makes sense.”
“What’s important for the court to consider is that we have a guideline range, and it should never be the court’s job to rush to sentence someone on the high or low end,” Lund said. “There’s not a lot of daylight between four months and six months, but going immediately to six months sees me ignoring the individual.”
Mendez Johnson added that so many members of the community, as well as three past employers, wrote letters of support on his behalf in the two months he’s been in jail. He’s always held a job, and while he’s had a few arrests — one which ended in no conviction and a domestic battery case that’s pending — those shouldn’t be held against him.
The domestic battery case, which is still active, stemmed from a Feb. 17 incident after a woman called 911 and hung up.
After knocking at an attached Kane Street address, the officer walked around, then saw the woman in a front window, according to the probable cause affidavit. The officer waved for her to speak with them. Salinas Santos then pulled her away from the window, then let her go. The woman was “crying and scared,” the affidavit states, and officers ordered Salinas Santos to stay there.
He told an officer in Spanish that they were having an argument. He said when he pulled her from the window, he was trying to get her cell phone, so she wouldn’t call 911 again, court records state.
He admitted he locked a one-year-old child in a bedroom, saying he didn’t want the woman to take the child from him, records state.
The woman told officers she was cooking and he held a tequila bottle while they argued over his drinking. Court filings allege he hit her in the side of her head with a liquor bottle. She tried calling 911 from a “non-working cell phone.” The call went through.
Officers later noted he also appeared to have hit her in the shoulder, records state. The woman said she didn’t want to press charges. Police noted they responded to a previous call, they said they would book him for charges.
The woman told officers she wanted to change her story, since he was the family’s breadwinner, court records state. She also declined to have police photograph her injuries.
At Thursday’s sentencing, Mendez Johnson referred to the county case as “a pending manner where Juan asserts his innocence,” she wrote. “Neither are convictions and neither should be used against him in any way at sentencing.”
Salinas-Santos said through an interpreter that the reason he came back to the United States was because he came from “a poor town with no opportunities.”
“I came here for a better life and home for my family. I would like to apologize to everyone here,” he said.
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On September 4, Munster Police pulled over Salinas-Santos as he was returning home from his job as a cook at Rosebud Steakhouse, Lund said. When officers asked for his license, he said he didn’t have one and instead gave him his Mexican Consulate card, she said.
Officers then contacted Homeland Security and were told he’d been deported to Mexico in 2014, after which he returned two years later, she said.
Because of the sentence, Salinas-Santos will likely remain in the Hammond City jail until he’s deported, Lund said.
Staff writer Meredith Colias-Pete contributed.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.