Free Republic

OMAHA, Neb. — The man convicted of hitting and killing an Iowa woman in an Omaha crash will serve years behind bars. Eswin Mejia received 20 to 22 years in prison for motor vehicle homicide and flight to avoid arrest. Mejia caused the crash that killed Sarah Root near 33rd and L streets in 2016. In December, he pleaded guilty to a charge of failure to appear and no contest to motor vehicle homicide. Authorities said Mejia was driving drunk and street racing when he rear-ended Root's car at a stoplight.

WASHINGTON — Eswin Mejia is officially on the federal immigration agency’s most-wanted list. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has added the 19-year-old Honduran citizen to its gallery of accused sex offenders, drug traffickers and other criminals. Police and prosecutors say Mejia caused a Jan. 31 wreck in Omaha that killed 21-year-old Sarah Root, who had graduated from Bellevue University a day earlier. He was arrested but disappeared after being released on bail a few days later. Federal officials had declined Omaha police requests to detain him. The latest ICE update to its most-wanted list notes that Mejia is wanted on suspicion...

Sarah Root is dead. Eswin Mejia is missing. And authorities are scrambling to answer how the 19-year-old accused drunken driver went missing just days after his arrest in Root’s death. A World-Herald review of Mejia’s case shows a systemic failure — from county pretrial release staff to the county judge to federal immigration enforcement officials — to ensure that the man charged with felony motor-vehicle homicide in Root’s death would answer in court to the charge. “He’s gone,” a law enforcement official told The World-Herald. He’s gone because of a lack of communication and common sense among governmental agencies, Douglas...