Twice-deported man gets 20 years in DUI fatality

WOODSTOCK – The 71-year-old motorcyclist killed in a June 2006 drunken driving crash involving a twice deported man supported organizations that opposed illegal immigrants, his daughter said.

Eulalio Haro, 37, of Woodstock, was sentenced to 20 years in prison Wednesday in connection with the crash that killed Dean Knospe, 71.

Haro was convicted in January of aggravated driving under the influence, reckless homicide and failure to report an accident involving death.

He will face deportation or federal prosecution for re-entry after deportation when his prison sentence is complete, authorities have said.

Knospe’s daughter, Barbara Knospe, described her father, a former United Airlines baggage handler, as a man who kept active in retirement with volunteer work and home improvement projects.

Knospe said her father also was an avid supporter of anti-immigration groups such as the Minuteman Project.

“He was a very honest, hardworking man who took great pride in all that he did and the fact that he started out with barely nothing and turned it into a good home for us,” Barbara Knospe said.

Knopse’s Harley Davidson Ultra Classic was struck by Haro’s Chevrolet Cavalier about 4 p.m. June 24, 2006. Haro dragged Knospe several hundred feet but did not stop, witnesses said. Police officers testified that Haro told them he left the scene because he didn’t have a driver’s license.

Estimates based on the small amount of alcohol in Haro’s system about 20 hours after the accident indicated that Haro had been driving at least at three times the legal limit. But Haro maintained that he was not drunk, just scared, at his sentencing hearing Wednesday.

“I didn’t ask for any of this to happen,” Haro said. “It was an accident.”

This was not Haro’s first criminal conviction, though. Haro was deported to Mexico in March 1995 after serving 19 months of a four-year prison sentence for a drunken driving accident that police said killed his brother.

Since then, he was stopped at the border and, in a separate incident, deported a second time. He also was convicted of driving drunk twice in McHenry County in 1998.

On Wednesday, prosecutor Michael Combs asked Judge Joseph Condon for the maximum 28-year sentence, arguing that Haro was a “drunken menace” who had no regard for the value of human life. Assistant Public Defender Christopher Harmon asked for a 14-year sentence, arguing that Haro had little education or substance abuse treatment.

Condon agreed Haro was a danger to society.

“He has not stopped drinking and driving,” Condon said. “And there’s little to no reason to conclude he will stop in the future.”