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When Roberto Miramontes Roman is sentenced next week for fatally shooting a Millard County deputy during a 2010 traffic stop, federal prosecutors will ask that he be sentenced to life in prison, plus 80 years.
It's the appropriate sentence, prosecutors argued in court papers, for the man who shot the two bullets that struck and killed 37-year-old Josie Greathouse Fox. She had pulled over the vehicle that Roman was driving near Delta because he was suspected in a drug transaction.
Roman, 44, was originally acquitted in Fox's murder in a 2012 state trial, where he testified that it was Ryan Greathouse, the deputy's brother, who pulled the trigger. But in 2013, a federal grand jury indicted Roman on 11 federal charges, including intentionally killing a law enforcement officer and several weapons- and drug-related charges.
He pleaded guilty to a handful of charges related to illegally re-entering the country ahead of his February trial. But at this trial, despite his testimony again that it was Greathouse who grabbed the AK-47 and fired the shots, jurors found him guilty of killing Fox. They also found him guilty of using a firearm during a crime of violence and several drug trafficking-related counts.
Now, prosecutors are asking that he be held in federal prison for the maximum sentence possible, and asked the judge to order that his sentences run consecutive to one another. That would total a life sentence plus 80 years.
"The murder of a law enforcement officer," prosecutors wrote, "is even more egregious when it is premeditated, as it was here. Roman made a conscious decision long before the traffic stop that he would do anything to avoid going to jail, including killing any police officer he encountered."
Prosecutors also argued that Roman showed "callous disregard" for Fox's family. After her death, he gave methamphetamine to Greathouse, which federal attorneys say fueled the brother's addiction and led to his 2010 overdose death.
"Heartlessly, Roman capitalized on that tragedy by falsely blaming Ryan Greathouse for the murder at his state trial," prosecutors wrote.
Defense attorneys have said that Roman will appeal his federal conviction, arguing that it is not fair to try him twice for the same crime.
Though the jury acquitted him of murder in the 2012 state trial, they did find Roman guilty of evidence tampering and illegal possession of a dangerous weapon. He was sentenced to spend up to 10 years in the Utah State Prison for those crimes.