Jesus Manuel Holguin-Albo's case has had a number of twists and turns over the past two years, delaying things to the point that when he pleaded guilty to manslaughter, Judge Gary Stott thanked him for being so patient with the process.

Holguin-Albo, 29, entered his guilty plea on Thursday, just days before his long-delayed trial was set to begin.

For two years, Holguin-Albo has sat in the Utah County Jail awaiting trial on a murder charge while defense attorneys and prosecutors were dismissed and replaced. But now that Holguin-Albo has pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter, he will get credit for those two years as time served. His sentencing is scheduled for June 19. Manslaughter is a second-degree felony that carries a sentence of one to 15 years in prison. Holguin-Albo is believed to be in the country illegally, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement has a hold on him. A native of Chihuahua, Mexico, he will be deported once his sentence is complete.

"He's relieved to finally have a resolution on the case. By the time of sentencing, he will have been in custody over two years, so it's taken a long time to get us where we are," said Brook Sessions, Holguin-Albo's defense attorney.

Deputy county attorney Curtis Larson said the prosecution was willing to reduce the charge from murder to manslaughter because Holguin-Albo was clearly under a great deal of distress at the time he fatally stabbed Raul Cazarez-Gonzalez.

According to Larson, the two had been drinking at Holguin-Albo's Provo home in May 2006 when they got into a physical altercation. Cazarez-Gonzalez held Holguin-Albo down on the floor and punched him repeatedly, and once he was let up, Holguin-Albo got a steak knife from his kitchen and stabbed Cazarez-Gonzalez, hitting a vein near his heart.

Larson said only 10-15 seconds elapsed between the time Holguin-Albo was let up from the floor and when he stabbed Cazarez-Gonzalez. Larson said Holguin-Albo's blood-alcohol content at the time was probably around 0.24.

"The totality of everything that went on certainly brought about an emotional distress for him at the time," Larson said. "He just found himself in this situation and reacted in an, of course, unlawful way and took somebody's life. But the law allows us to make those allowances in those circumstances."

Sessions said Holguin-Albo and Cazarez-Gonzalez were good friends, and even asked police after his arrest, "What happened to my friend?" Several police officers said Holguin-Albo confessed to the stabbing.

"He feels terrible because they were very close friends. They had worked together at different locations around the country, and he'd actually helped him get the job that he had here," he said.

Sessions is the most recent in a string of attorneys who have represented Holguin-Albo. He was initially represented by the public defender's office, but the entire office was dismissed after public defenders came into possession of a bloody shirt that was allegedly used to pick up the murder weapon. The next defense attorney, Paige Benjamin, asked to withdraw from the case after a witness approached him at a bank and talked to him about the case.

The prosecution has run into similar obstacles. In January, prosecutors Guy Probert and Randy Kennard were removed from the case after Probert told Stott that he could be called as a witness due to statements made to him by another witness in the case.

Attorneys for both sides felt that Stott's comments to Holguin-Albo were appropriate under the circumstances.

"Judge Stott has done that in the past, and I think it's a great gesture on his part because Mr. Holguin-Albo was patient in the circumstances. This case took a lot of interesting turns along the way," Larson said.

• Jeremy Duda can be reached at 344-2561 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it