From Andy Furillo:
A judge today sentenced Rolando Gallego to 16 years to life in prison for his second-degree murder conviction earlier this year in the 1991 Elk Grove stabbing death of his aunt.
Gallego, 40, had maintained his innocence in the slaying of Leticia Estores, 52, who sufffered more than 70 knife wounds when she was killed while cooking a meal in her Laguna West Way home, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael W. Sweet said from the bench today.
Prosecutors charged that Gallego murdered his aunt for money to pay his gambling debts.
Gallego wasn't arrested in the case until July 2006, after investigators matched his DNA - taken from a cigarette butt the defendant had discarded on a street while under surveillance in San Francisco - to evidence lifted the previous year from a bloody towel found in the victim's house.
Jurors convicted Gallego on the second-degree murder count on Feb. 25.
At his sentencing today, Gallego said "I'm sorry" to the victim's family. He said he loved his slain aunt "like a mother."
His attorney, Sue Karlton, of the public defender's office, said that Gallego's apology was not an admission of guilt. She said she planned to file an appeal on the case today.
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