NEWPORT BEACH (CNS) - A 22-year-old man pleaded no contest and was immediately sentenced to 80 hours of community service today for his part in the alcohol poisoning death of a fellow UC Irvine fraternity member.
Jonathan Gabriel Villicana pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor count of allowing a party or gathering at which underage drinking is permitted. He was placed on one year of informal probation and ordered to attend self-help meetings.
Villicana was considered one of the least culpable as he was on the lease of the residence where the party was held and was in and out of the gathering and had no connection to the purchase or administering of the alcohol, his attorney Sal Ciulla said.
"He's in graduate school now hoping to complete it in a year and a half to earn his master's degree," Ciulla said. "He's extremely remorseful about what happened and feels terrible about it."
Villicana will likely perform his community service in a soup kitchen or facility for the homeless as the victim's father suggested during a lengthy victim impact statement, Ciulla said.
"The victim's dad made a very compassionate victim impact statement for both sides actually," Ciulla said. "He was not vengeful at all... He made it clear he wasn't out to scar any of these kids for life. He knows it was not intentional, but he was hoping for a bit of a stiffer sentence."
Co-defendants Caleb Gavin Valleroy, 21, and Jonathan Anephi Vu, 23, both pleaded no contest to misdemeanors Dec. 1.
Valleroy, who pleaded no contest to allowing a party or gathering at which underage drinking was permitted, was sentenced to 80 hours of community service, placed on a year of informal probation and ordered to attend self-help meetings.
Vu, who pleaded no contest to furnishing or selling alcohol to a minor and allowing a party or gathering a which underage drinking was permitted, was sentenced to perform 200 hours of community service, placed on informal probation for two years and ordered to attend self-help meetings.
They also had to write a "letter of condolence" to the victim's family. Zavier Larenz Brown, 22, and Mohamed Ibragim Kharaev, 22, are awaiting trial and next due in court March 3 in the Harbor Justice Center in Newport Beach.
The case stems from the alcohol overdose death of 18-year-old Noah Domingo on Jan. 12, 2019, in an off-campus fraternity house in Irvine.
Investigators did not find any evidence that hazing played a part in the death, according to the Orange County District Attorney's Office.
Domingo had joined the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity several months before attending a ``Big Brother Night'' party where he had been drinking, prosecutors said.