An Albuquerque man was recently sentenced to 2½ years in federal prison in connection with the death of a bicyclist on Kirtland Air Force Base in 2013.
Joseph Baca, 39, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in May and was sentenced on Oct. 17, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a Tuesday news release.
In his plea agreement, Baca admitted driving a concrete truck on Kirtland on Dec. 4, 2013, and crashing into a bicyclist after running a stop sign while talking on his cellphone, according to the release.
The bicyclist — identified in a previous Journal story as Jesse Hawkins — died from his injuries.
Hawkins was a Lockheed Martin employee who had been with the company for 18 years, according to a 2013 Journal story.
A Lockheed Martin spokesman at the time said Hawkins was program manager and site lead for the U.S. Air Force Distributed Mission Operations Center at Kirtland. Before joining Lockheed Martin, Hawkins was in the Marine Corps.
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