Santa Rosa man gets 15 years in prison for January shooting

A Santa Rosa man was sentenced to 15 years in prison Wednesday in the Jan. 26 shooting death of another man outside a West Avenue apartment.

Celestino Soto Roman, 39, pleaded no-contest in October to charges of voluntary manslaughter – a killing committed in a quarrel or the heat of passion – and to the personal use of a firearm in the death of Carlos Vela, 36, after an argument outside Vela’s apartment.

The manslaughter charge carried an 11-year term and the gun charge added another four years to the sentence, which was agreed to by both sides.

During a preliminary hearing, Vela’s roommate testified that Roman, whom he knew from the apartment complex, was talking and drinking with Vela in the small living room before the shooting.

He said they were talking about earlier times they each had been wounded by gunfire and were showing each other their scars.

The men went outside and shortly afterward, he said he heard gunshots and saw Vela bleeding.

Roman was arrested about 15 hours later when police spotted him driving in west Santa Rosa. A gun was recovered, and investigators said it was the one used to shoot Vela.

Vela was shot three times in the abdomen, according to the coroner’s report. Vela’s death was the city’s first homicide of 2008.