DUBLIN — Two Bay Area men who shot at one another in Oakland in 2020, missing and as a substitute killing a 19-year-old woman, have been sentenced to a long time in prison, in line with court records.
Fernando Sevilla, 43, was sentenced to 21 years and eight months in state prison, while Willie Samuels, 29, was sentenced to twenty-eight years and 4 months in prison. Both men have already been transferred to state prison. The sentences were imposed late last yr but haven’t yet been announced.
Sevilla and Samuels stood in court last yr and blamed one another for the November 2020 shooting that killed Brentwood resident Madalyn Sandoval. The men were each convicted of intentional homicide with a firearm, but managed to avoid a murder conviction.
Several of Sandoval's members of the family spoke on the sentencing. Her brother said he had no sympathy for Sevilla, which he said deserved a life sentence for its “terrible mistake.” But many of the criticism was geared toward Samuels, whom members of the family described as a manipulator who pressured Sandoval and acted.
“You abused my sister. They manipulated her and put her in the situation she was in,” Sandoval’s brother, Mitchell Sandoval Samuels, said on the hearing. He later added: “You are a monster and you belong in this prison cell for the rest of your life. “Society has no place for men such as you.”
Another sister, Vanessa Sandoval, called him a “waste of air.”
“Madalyn Sandoval’s name should live forever. She touched too much of our lives in the short 19 years she was on this earth,” said Vanessa Sandoval. “She was the most loving, caring and free-spirited soul I have ever known.”
Samuels and Sevilla found themselves in a life-or-death conflict that quickly escalated and was captured on surveillance cameras near a home. It began when Sandoval and Sevilla pulled up in the same car and parked near San Antonio Park in East Oakland, but after a few minutes Sandoval exited Sevilla's truck and fled to Samuels' vehicle, which had stopped in a nearby alley.
Sevilla drove his truck next to Samuels' car and the two exchanged words, then there were shots. According to Alameda County Judge Paul Delucchi, Samuels drove Sandoval to a hospital after the shooting and simply dropped her off at the front.
Samuels and Sevilla both spoke at the sentencing. Sevilla apologized and said, “That was not my intention and never my plan.” However, prosecutors noted in a sentencing memo that he admitted to smashing the weapon he was using with a sledgehammer and was shot at one Jail visit recorded in which he expressed his belief that he could not be charged without the murder weapon.
“I used to be scared. I'm very sorry. She's in my prayers. I apologize,” Sevilla said.
When it was his turn to talk, Samuels desired to remind those in attendance that he, too, was grieving Sandoval's loss.
“Maddie was family to me. I'll say it again: Maddie was family to me… I never intended Maddie not to be here,” he said, later adding that he wasn't the type to turn his back on family. “I never intended to threaten Sevilla's life in any way. I didn’t know this was going to happen.”
A couple of minutes later, Judge Delucchi spoke, calling Samuels' behavior – leaving Sandoval within the hospital – “one of the most callous, callous, just plain worst things I have ever seen in my life.” Prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo that Samuels had a passerby pulled over, driving a truck, put a dying Sandoval to bed after which drove off in his own Honda, leaving the Good Samaritan to take her the remaining of the strategy to the hospital.
“I plan to throw a dying Madalyn Sandoval in the back of a pickup truck and then run away, only to be told I'm not turning my back on the family is a callous thing to do,” Delucchi said.
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