District Attorney Announces Attempted Murder Case Sentencing

Lengthy Prison Term For Difficult To Prove Charge

Washoe County District Attorney Chris Hicks announced today that a Sparks man was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the attempted murder and felony battery of a 20 year old Sun Valley man, who was shot once in the chest and survived. The prosecution involved the charge of attempted murder, which presents unique challenges to prove in Nevada.

Cesar Eduardo Romero-Manzo 21, from Sparks was sentenced on December 15, 2016 on one count of Attempted Murder with a Deadly Weapon and one count of Battery with a Deadly Weapon (BDW) Causing Substantial Bodily Harm. Romero-Manzo was previously convicted at trial in June of this year. In order to obtain the conviction on the attempted murder charge, Deputy District Attorney (DDA) Michael Bolenbaker presented evidence proving Romero-Manzo intended to kill the victim and took a step towards accomplishing that killing by having shot the victim in the chest. At sentencing, DDA Bolenbaker argued Romero-Manzo made calculated steps to murder the victim by wrapping the firearm in a bandana showing clear motivation to not only kill the victim but to  escape justice.

Romero-Manzo received 20 years for the attempted murder charge and a consecutive 20 years for the use of a deadly weapon in its commission.  He also received a concurrent 15 years for the BDW charge and an additional 6 years for a separate attempted robbery charge from another case.  Romero-Manzo will be eligible for parole after a minimum of 16 years has been served.

The case against Romero-Manzo began the morning of February 10, 2015, when the Sparks Police Department responded to a shooting that had taken place near Stanford and J Streets in Sparks.  Detectives initially met with the victim, a 20 year old Sun Valley man, who had driven himself to the hospital after being shot in the chest. The victim told detectives he had been shot after he was confronted by an ex-boyfriend of his current girlfriend. Detectives identified the shooter as Romero-Manzo, who claimed he had been attacked by two unknown assailants when initially questioned about the incident.  Based on the investigation, detectives were able to determine that Romero-Manzo had been harassing his ex-girlfriend and the victim for some time.  They further determined that on the day of the shooting, Romero-Manzo had crashed his vehicle into the victim’s vehicle as the two were driving along Stanford Street in Sparks.  After the crash, the victim grabbed a baseball bat for protection and got out of his car to confront Romero-Manzo.  Romero-Manzo had also gotten out of his car and subsequently shot the victim once in the chest with a .22 revolver.  After being shot, the victim was able to disarm Romero-Manzo and strike him in the head with the revolver prior to driving himself to a nearby hospital.  At the hospital, it was determined that the bullet had hit the victim in the center of his chest, but had not penetrated deeper than the chest muscle. Following their investigation, Sparks detectives arrested Romero-Manzo and the case was submitted to this Office for prosecution. Print