S.F. man gets 10 years for shootings

A 23-year-old Santa Fe man was sentenced to 10 years in prison Thursday for shooting two people in a Cerrillos Road parking lot nearly two years ago.

After pleading guilty to attempted murder, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and two counts of shooting at or from a car, Matt Holmes apologized to the victims — who survived the shooting but were not in court Thursday — as well as the victims’ families and his own family.

“There’s nothing I can say to make you feel differently about what happened,” said Holmes, who turned to face the parents of the now-22-year-old man he shot in the belly. “I am just totally sorry for everything that happened. I’m ashamed of it.”

Holmes also said spending nearly two years in jail forced him to “take inventory” of his life, including the fact the formative years of his son and daughter will be spent without him.

“I’ve learned a lot in jail,” he said. “I’ve come to realize that everything I was doing out there was wrong.”

Holmes’ words impressed state District Judge Michael Vigil. “Matthew, you said some things today that are encouraging to me,” Vigil said. “It shows there’s still a heart in there that feels. That’s not always the case.”

Leonard and Sharon Romero, parents of the young man who was shot, said they were satisfied with the 10-year sentence and were glad to hear Holmes’ apology.

“If he meant it, then I appreciate it,” said Leonard Romero, a former Santa Fe police officer and current Santa Fe County sheriff’s deputy. “Hopefully, he can get through it and come out a better person.”

Still, the pain caused by Holmes’ actions during Halloween weekend in 2005 is not something the Romeros said they will soon forget.

According to police and prosecutors, Holmes followed the Romeros’ son and a then-19-year-old girl and confronted them in the parking lot of Las Salsas Mexican Restaurant in the early morning. In addition to shooting the Romeros’ son in the stomach, Holmes also shot the girl in the neck.

Holmes was upset that the Romeros’ son had previously had a relationship with Holmes’ ex-girlfriend, said prosecutor Joseph Campbell.

Leonard Romero said the .357 bullet remains lodged in his son’s lower back, and the young man was hooked up to a machine for six months that helped his abdomen heal. His medical bills totaled more than $1 million, Leonard Romero said.

“It was a senseless act, a cowardly act,” he told Vigil.

Said Sharon Romero, “It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever gone through. It’s so sad, Matthew, that you had to do something like that.”

Their son did not want to attend Thursday’s hearing because he’s still too angry to be in the same room with Holmes, Leonard Romero said. The female victim showed up before Thursday’s hearing started to address the court, but found she also wasn’t able to be in the room with Holmes and left, Campbell said.

Holmes will receive credit for serving a year and 10 months in jail while awaiting trial, but will have to serve 85 percent of the remaining eight years and two months. He will spend two years on parole afterward, according to the plea bargain.

Contact Jason Auslander at jauslander@sfnewmexican.com.