Bradenton teen gets 40-year prison sentence for death of two women in 2014 crash
40 years.
Both grieving families sat in the courtroom asking for justice, and both women's parents took the stand.
Réne Longpré, Gabriella's father, first detailed the dreams he lost for his daughter.
"I had a dream she would graduate top of her class. I had a dream that she would find a new career ... I had a dream she'd find the man of her dreams and marry. I had a dream I'd walk her down the aisle and I had a dream that we had a father-daughter dance to butterfly kisses. I had a dream a few years later she gave us a grandchild."
He went on to say that all those dreams were shattered and gone in one day, when he got the call that she had been killed by a hit-and-run driver.
Then he turned his attention to Herrera, telling him he hopes Nov. 20, 2014, haunts him to his final days.
"You truly are a menace," Longpré says. "If you still have a soul, may God have mercy on it."
Longpré's mother, Margharita Komyati, wavered between grief-stricken rage and anguish as she read from a multi-page speech.
"Our families are now serving a life sentence," Komyati said. "For us there is no parole. For Mr. Herrera, it should be the same."
Margarete Costanzo broke down in tears as she spoke of the loss of her only child, Jessica Constanzo, "the love of our lives."
"Instead of us walking her down the aisle, we walked her casket down the aisle," she said angrily. "Emerson Herrera, the system did not fail you, you failed the system."
She looked at him and read a quote that she felt pertained to him: "You can never make the same mistake twice, because the second time you make it, it's a choice. You are not Teflon. You need to be responsible for your actions."
Mark Constanzo also spoke of the pain and loss of his only child and how he now lives his life, "just going through the motions."
"The day you took my daughter's life, you might as well have taken mine too, because it ended that night, 544 days ago," he said.
He has tried everything, including talking to others, consulting books and grief counseling, in hopes of finding peace, he said.
"And all that I realized, there is no peace," Constanzo said. "Nor will there ever be peace for me. Instead I live two lives, the one with my little girl and the one without."
His daughter had touched many lives and was kinder than him, he went on to say.
"Many have told me, that you would be the person she would have reached out to try and help and get on the right path," Constanzo said. "My faith says I should to try and forgive. But my heart is too heavy."
He told Herrera that he could not show him compassion as he watched the case unfold.
"But in the end, the only facts that I know is that two beautiful girls are dead and nothing will change that," Constanzo said. "Any dreams I had of walking Jessica down the aisle and spoiling my grandchildren were stolen from me."
He went on to call Herrera a career criminal who showed no remorse, hoping society could do what was right so that another father didn't have to pick out a casket for his daughter.
"In the end I am only sure of two things. My daughter is dead and every day it haunts me... The day I stop grieving is the day I stop breathing," Constanzo said.
Herrera briefly addressed the courtroom in simple, short sentences.
"I want to apologize to the victim's family," Herrera said. "It was not my intention to hurt anyone that night."
Herrera had been arrested earlier in 2014 and charged with accessory to murder after the fact, but the then-presiding Judge John Lakin ordered his recorded confession suppressed. The state appealed that ruling and Herrera was allowed out of jail on his own recognizance. A decision has still not been made by the appellate courts.
Jessica De Leon, Herald law enforcement reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7049. You can follow her on Twitter @JDeLeon1012.
This story was originally published April 8, 2016 at 11:44 PM with the headline "Bradenton teen gets 40-year prison sentence for death of two women in 2014 crash ."