A young couple charged in connection with the fatal shooting of a 37-year-old man on Christmas Day 2007 in East Palo Alto struck plea deals in San Mateo County Superior Court on Tuesday, an assistant district attorney said.

Francisco Javier Mendoza, 24, pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter and assault with a firearm for the shooting death of Valentino Gallegos, Assistant District Attorney Karen Guidotti said.

The plea deal, which included admitting to the special allegations of gun use and inflicting great bodily injury, means Mendoza will serve 19 years in prison as opposed to the life sentence he faced if convicted of murder, Guidotti said.

His girlfriend at the time of the shooting, Margarita Bustos Ortega, also 24, pleaded no contest to an accessory-to-murder charge on the condition that she serve 16 months in prison, according to Guidotti.

She had been charged with being an accessory to murder prior to the plea deal, and could have been sentenced to up to three years in prison if convicted.

Guidotti said the plea deal was the result of a "balancing act" between the prosecution and defense.

She said the district attorney's office "wouldn't have engaged in this stipulated sentence if we didn't think this was the best course to take," she said. "Nineteen years is a lengthy term of punishment."

Mendoza is believed to have gotten into a fight at the Pal Market at 2384 Cooley Ave. in East Palo Alto on Dec. 25 and then left, returned with a handgun and shot two men, including Gallegos.

The other victim, Gerardo Hernandez, then 20, was seriously injured, East Palo Alto police Detective Jeff Liu said.

On Sept. 15, 2008, police identified Mendoza as the suspected shooter and arrested him the next day at the intersection of University and Woodland avenues in East Palo Alto, Liu said.

Mendoza has been in custody without bail, and Ortega remains in custody in lieu of $100,000 bail. They are scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 13.

— Bay City News Service