Carson woman sentenced for running over boyfriend

A Carson City woman who admitted running over her then-boyfriend was sentenced Tuesday morning to up to 10 years in prison.Crystal Trujillo, 26, pleaded guilty to one count of battery with the use of a deadly weapon causing substantial bodily harm and one count of reckless driving causing substantial bodily harm. She was sentenced to 4-10 years in prison for battery and given a suspended sentence of 12-60 months for the reckless driving. She will be on probation after serving her time for the battery count.Judge James Wilson Jr. gave Trujillo credit for 399 days served, and said he would attach a note to his sentencing recommending she be paroled at the earliest possible time, once her minimum term of four years is completed. Wilson told Trujillo the first sentence was to punish her for her actions and to bring a sense of justice to the victim, Shiloh Richards.The suspended sentence and probation are meant to “try to help you get out of the situation you’re in,” Wilson said to Trujillo, who wiped tears away from her face.Wilson ordered Trujillo to attend mental health court as a condition of her suspended sentence after she gets out of prison. If mental health court does not accept her, she must attend and graduate from drug court, he said.Another condition of Trujillo’s suspended sentence is she is not to have an intimate relationship with a man until a counselor says she has the skills necessary to be in a nonviolent relationship, and Parole and Probation grants her permission.Wilson said Trujillo’s sentence would have been different if she had run over Shiloh Richards, her boyfriend at the time, out of fear.“If I had heard you ran him over because you feared for your future safety or for your life, the sentence would have been different. But that’s not what happened,” Wilson said.Wilson told Trujillo he did not believe her statement that it was an accident.Dr. Melissa Piasecki testified on Nov. 21 that Trujillo told her she was most upset about Richards walking away from her after an alleged fight they had in her car prior to the Sept. 22, 2011, incident.Richards hobbled to the witness stand on Nov. 21 and spoke with impaired and labored speech about his recovery.“I had to learn how to walk right, learned how to speak over,” Richards testified.Wilson told Trujillo she was fortunate only to be charged with battery and reckless driving, both resulting in substantial bodily harm.“You’re lucky you’re not charged with murder,” he said.Wilson said the other major factors in his decision were her age, the history of childhood abuse she had endured, the alleged abuse at Richard’s hands and her lack of criminal history.According to police report, Trujillo and Richards had been arguing in Trujillo’s car at the intersection of Truckee and Steamboat drives when Richards got out of the car and began walking west on the southbound sidewalk of Steamboat Drive.Witnesses told police Trujillo made a U-turn and drove up onto the sidewalk, catching Richards with the hood of her 1997 Toyota Camry and carrying him into the intersection. When Richards slid off, she ran him over.Richards was flown to the Renown Medical Center in Reno with severe head injuries.