Arrest Warrant: Woman granted new trial failed to report for blood alcohol content tests

The ABC-7 I-Team has learned an arrest warrant has been issued for Desiree Skaf, the woman granted a new trial after being sentenced to 15 years in prison for “intoxication manslaughter.”

The arrest warrants mentions a charge of Intoxicated Manslaughter with a Vehicle and states the new surety bond will be set at $750,000.

The court document states an employee with the Criminal Justice Coordination Department claims Skaf violated the terms of her personal recognizance bond. Skaf has allegedly failed to report to the department and skipped more than five blood alcohol content tests.

In July of 2013, then 21-year-old Skaf, allegedly rear-ended a small sedan driven by Iris Bustamante, causing the car to run off the road into a utility pole. It happened on the 5900 block of Doniphan.

Bustamante and her passenger, 25-year-old Janet Balderrama, were seriously injured and taken to University Medical Center. Balderrama later died from injuries sustained in the collision.

Skaf pleaded guilty to Intoxication Manslaughter, a court document states, “after a series of protracted hearings and at least one failed trial.” Skaf reached a plea deal with prosecutors on February 24, 2016.

In June 2016, a judge granted Skaf a new trial, citing a “fatally flawed” plea agreement.

Skaf’s attorney at the time, Mario Gonzalez , stated in an affidavit that was part of a motion for a pending trial, that he unilaterally “crossed out the paragraph relating to waiving the right to appeal.”

The court document further states “this cross-through was unnoticed by either the state’s attorney or the Trial Court and the defendant entered her plea of guilty.”

This reportedly led to a series of “heated arguments” between the trial court and Gonzalez, according to the court document.

“The Trial Court rejected the plea agreement and rejected panicked, repeated, and conflicting overtures by Defendant’s attorneys to withdraw her plea, or waive her appeal rights, or otherwise reset and start over,” the document states, “Instead, the Trial Court proceeded to sentence the defendant to 15 years in prison.”

In his conclusion, Senior Justice David Wellington Chew, sitting on assignment in the 171st District Court, stated there was a “fatally flawed” plea agreement by the “unilateral and unapproved modification of the plea papers by the defendant’s previous counsel.”

Wellington Chew further stated, “In the face of her previous counsel’s misrepresentations, the defendant’s plea was not voluntary or knowing. The defendant should be entitled, as a matter of law, to withdraw her plea of guilty and have her motion for a new trial granted.”

The judge did rule against Skaf’s motion to have Judge Bonnie Rangel recused from a new trial. “I am not convinced there is sufficient evidence before me to raise a genuine question of the Trial Court’s impartiality going forward,” Wellington Chew said.