A habitual drunk driver with a revoked license died late Sunday when the car he was driving collided head-on with another vehicle in northeast Evans, police said.
Alcohol is suspected in the crash that killed Javier Orona-Berumen, 47, after he crossed the double-yellow line along 37th Street near 65th Avenue and collided with 27-year-old Alicia Reddy at about 9:30 p.m., police said in a news release.
Another man, Lucio Valles-Rios, 34, was a passenger riding with Berumen, police said. He was taken to an undisclosed hospital with critical injuries that required surgery. Reddy suffered minor injuries.
Court records show Orona-Berumen has a history of drunken-driving arrests, each time pleading to charges that resulted in short jail terms and a fine.
He was convicted in 1999 for reckless driving, a misdemeanor, in Weld County and given a suspended 90-day jail sentence.
He pleaded guilty in April 2009 to misdemeanor DUI in Adams County while driving under a license that was revoked in 2008 and was sentenced to a year in jail, records show.
In September 2010, Orona-Berumen was again arrested for drunken driving, records show, and pleaded guilty in Weld County District Court to a felony charge of driving on a revoked license. The drunken-driving charge was dismissed. He was sentenced to 120 days in jail and three years probation.
Orona-Berumen has had several other traffic convictions dating back 25 years including careless driving, leaving the scene of an accident, driving while impaired and driving on a suspended license.
