An illegal immigrant who killed a University of South Carolina student in a hit-and-run crash is serving just one year in prison, even though state law allowed the judge to give him up to 25 years.

According to The New York Post, Rosali Fernandez-Cruz, 24, was convicted of killing 21-year-old college junior Nathaniel Baker.

Baker was mowed down and died earlier this year.

The judge sentenced him to only one year, with credit for 131 days already served.

The Post reported that three charges in the case were quietly dropped.

Fernandez-Cruz pleaded guilty to the single count of hit-and-run resulting in death.

Illegal immigrant quietly handed slap-on-the-wrist sentence for hit-and-run that killed University of South Carolina student https://t.co/BU1o45Kcvn pic.twitter.com/GdnSvrtFjg

— New York Post (@nypost) October 9, 2025

The shocking leniency came despite the fact that Fernandez-Cruz fled the scene after striking Baker’s motorcycle near the campus in Columbia.

The Post noted that Fernandez-Cruz, a native of El Salvador, had been on the run from Immigration and Customs Enforcement since 2018.

He is now being held at Kirkland Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina, and is expected to complete his sentence on March 2, 2026, according to the state’s Department of Corrections.

“The judge decided the sentence, which was one year,” a spokesperson for South Carolina Republican Attorney General Alan Wilson told Fox News.

According to the network, Wilson’s office said Baker’s family was consulted before sentencing.

“They did not want this to be politicized or highly publicized. They were in agreement with the guilty plea and sentence,” Robert Kittle, communications director with the state attorney general’s office, told Fox News.

But the state prosecutes crimes on behalf of all South Carolinians, not on behalf of any one family.

A deadly hit-and-run is not a personal grievance, but a public crime.

And when the offender is in the country illegally, the court’s duty to uphold the law should be even clearer.

WIS-TV reported that Fernandez-Cruz originally faced charges for driving without a license, failure to yield, and failure to render aid. All of those charges were dismissed once he pleaded guilty to the main count.

There was no plea deal, according to WIS. That means the one-year sentence was the judge’s unilateral decision.

Not a single report named the judge who made it.

South Carolina law allows for a sentence of up to 25 years for fatal hit-and-run crashes.

The court chose one year.

Rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs didn’t kill anyone, and still faces more legal jeopardy than this convicted illegal alien. That says more about South Carolina’s judicial priorities than about the celebrity culture of perversion.

Any American citizen guilty of killing someone in a hit-and-run would beg for such mercy.

Now, illegals have precedent to expect it.

We can only hope that when Fernandez-Cruz walks out of prison next March, ICE is waiting at the gate.

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