SAN DIEGO, Calif. (KGTV) – Constantino Banda will soon be on trial for a DUI that seriously hurt a little boy.
It happened May 6th, when a truck slammed into the side of a family’s car, heading home from Disneyland. It sent six-year-old Lennox Lake to the hospital for several weeks.
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“I’m feeling so bad because I have one kid that’s the same age,” Leticia Alvarez said. She is Banda’s estranged wife.
Alvarez claims Banda got into the passenger side of the truck that night. But prosecutors are confident he was behind the wheel when the crash happened.
“He told me, ‘I don't know what happened, but the officer told me I was in an accident,” she said. Alvarez said he also cried when told about what happened to Lennox.
Alvarez says Banda was in the U.S. illegally, but only because his kids are here and they mean the world to him.
As for being deported at least 15 times, she explained, “he tried to cross the border and failed…those are the only one's I know (about)."
She says those makeup more than half of his deportations. Another DUI sent him back to Mexico one of the times. We asked about the other cases, but Alvarez says she says she doesn't know.
But she maintains, Banda is not a bad person.
“We'll I've been married to him for 19 years, and I have four boys with him, I think he’s a good person,” she said.
