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A 33-year-old man was sentenced to prison for up to 40 years on Monday for two unrelated homicides.
Nitokalisi Niki Fonua, 33, of West Valley City, will serve two to 20 years for the 2009 fatal shooting 21-year-old Krystal Flores, who was sleeping on the couch of a Salt Lake City home when he and others entered the wrong home seeking revenge on rival gang members.
Fonua also was sentenced to two to 20 years for the June 2007 shooting death of 34-year-old Vilami Latu, in the garage of a Salt Lake City home. Fonua told prosecutors he had gone to the residence, near 1800 West and 630 North, to collect on a debt.
Third District Judge Randall Skanchy ordered the two sentences — which both include gun enhancements — to run consecutively, resulting in a four-to-40-year prison term.
Fonua negotiated that sentence with prosecutors when he pleaded guilty earlier this month to one count of second-degree felony manslaughter in each of the slayings.
In 2010, Fonua was charged with first-degree felony murder and other crimes connected to Flores' death.
On April 6, while pleading guilty to killing Flores, Fonua also pleaded guilty to killing Latu.
At his sentencing, Fonua expressed his remorse and regret and apologized to the victims' families and to his own family.
Latu's mother, Mete Latu, said that she forgives Fonua. Latu's daughter, Arianna Akauloa, asked for leniency, "because there's been enough pain and heartache to go around."
Flores' sister, Adelina Flores, however, told Skanchy that it would be for her sister to forgive Fonua. She described Krystal Flores as a "beautiful young woman," her best friend, and she thinks about her every day.
Krystal Flores' mother, Estela Flores, asked Skanchy through an interpreter to give Fonua a longer sentence; prosecutor Vincent Meister agreed.
Fonua is one of four men charged with murder and aggravated burglary for Flores' death.
Alexander Bloomfield, 35, and Pailate K. Lomu, 26, are scheduled for trials later this year.
No court dates are currently set for a fourth defendant, George Blake Angilau, 25.
Police have said the four men were members of the Baby Regulators gang who were allegedly looking for revenge on rival Tongan Crips gang members after Lomu was targeted in a prior shooting.
Following a 2011 preliminary hearing, a judge said the evidence showed that the four were out "hunting" rival gang members the night of July 19, 2009, when they entered the home near 1300 South and 1500 West.
Fonua has told police that he quickly realized they had the wrong house and started to leave. But Fonua said he fired a rifle shot to scare Flores because he thought she was on the phone with police, prosecutor Stephen Nelson previously said.
Flores, who was wounded in the head, died in a hospital on Aug. 2, 2009.
No one in the home saw the actual shooting, but witnesses identified Bloomfield and Lomu as the men who broke in.
Court documents have pointed to Bloomfield as the likely triggerman, because he was armed with a rifle, the same type of weapon that fired the fatal .22-caliber round.
But Fonua has said he also had a rifle.
"We think there's at least a pretty good chance the round that killed her came from Fonua," Nelson has said. But that doesn't mean Bloomfield is innocent. "No one is saying [Fonua's round] was the only round that was fired."
Angilau admitted firing a handgun at a rival gang member while outside acting as a lookout that night, according to court documents.