Judge hands out jail time to Eagle Lake woman

Jury ruled community supervision enough, judge disagrees

An Eagle Lake woman who received no jail time from jury members after pleading guilty to manslaughter will now serve time after the presiding judge decided community supervision wasn’t enough at her sentencing on Tuesday, April 22.

Aaliyah Dominiq Almanza, 24, was initially charged with manslaughter after a crash she was deemed to be at fault for on July 17, 2022, killed 8-year-old Tyler Joe Blair.

Almanza’s fate however would ultimately be decided at her sentencing, determined by Judge William D. Old, the presiding judge on the case, who took matters into his own hands and decided that no jail time was an inadequate punishment for the severity of what she had done.

Instead, Almanza has begun serving a 90-day sentence effective the day of her sentencing but will serve only 45 days having already served 45 days prior to the sentencing. She will also spend Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter, as well as July 16 through July 18 every year in jail during her 10-year probationary period.

“She’s going to have to spend holidays in jail and she has a lot of restrictions on her,” said Rita Herzik, grandmother of Tyler Joe Blair. “Watching her mother watch that happen, it broke my heart for her mother. But actions have consequences, and she has to face them.”

Almanza went into the trial acknowledging what she had done, pleading guilty to the indictment and seeking the sympathy of both the family of Blair and the 12 jurors deciding her fate.

Initially, Almanza received no jail time from jurors after they deemed she wasn’t a notorious criminal, having held a clean criminal record prior to the incident. This made her eligible for community supervision if sentenced to 10 years or less, which she was, with a maximum sentence of 20 years looming.

The Blair family were distraught at the end of the jury trial after hearing the jury’s decision, being left with the feeling that justice was not served.

The Citizen did not receive any comments from the Almanza family as of press time.