A 21-year-old man was sentenced on May 4 to 16 years to life in state prison for killing a friend at a construction site last year, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced.
Christian Valdez was found guilty by a jury last month of one count of second-degree murder.
Valdez and Juan Sanchez, 19, were longtime friends and worked together at a construction site on the 4200 block of Burns Avenue in Silver Lake. Valdez showed up to work drunk last May and was ordered to go home. He then borrowed the victim’s car and crashed into a parked vehicle.
Deputy district attorney Saeed Teymouri, who prosecuted the case, said Sanchez hoped that Valdez would pay for the damage to the vehicle.
On May 22, 2014, Valdez returned to work and bludgeoned Sanchez to death with a sledgehammer and a framing hammer, the prosecutor said.
Valdez fled the scene but was arrested shortly thereafter.
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