A 22-year-old man who pleaded no contest earlier this month to killing his childhood friend, Max Bernal, was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison, a Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman announced.
David Aldana, 22, appeared Friday in San Fernando Superior Court for sentencing after having pleaded no contest Aug. 7 to one count of voluntary manslaughter and having admitted a special allegation of personally using a handgun.
“Defendant David Aldana was sentenced today to 10 years in state prison,” Shiara Davila-Morales, spokeswoman for the DA, confirmed for The Signal Friday.
Deputy District Attorney Matthew Vodnoy prosecuted the case.
Aldana shot and killed Maximiliano Bernal, 22, in February 2016. The two had been friends since they were children.
Just over a year ago, Aldana led homicide detectives to the area of mile marker 7.89 on Sand Canyon Road where they found “the victim’s body and discovered he had been shot at least one time in the upper torso,” Lt. Eddie Hernandez of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Homicide Bureau told The Signal at that time.
Sometime between Feb. 23 and Feb. 24, Bernal was shot and killed, and his body dumped in a ravine. It was discovered near a turnout.
The felony complaint filed against Aldana included the allegation that the murder was committed with a handgun.
Aldana turned himself in at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection office in San Ysidro on Feb. 24, 2016, prosecutors said at the time.
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