Beau Maestas, 23, appears in District Court to be sentenced Thursday on charges of robbery and attempted murder in connection with the stabbings of two children in Mesquite in 2003. He already had been sentenced to death for killing one of the girls, 3-year-old Kristyanna Cowan. Photo by Gary Thompson.
Monique Maestas, who three years ago helped stab a 3-year-old girl to death and paralyze the child's then-10-year-old half sister, apologized in court Thursday and found some good in the tragedy she had caused.
District Judge Donald Mosley sentenced Maestas to two life terms with the possibility of parole after 20 years and an additional seven to 32 years in prison, meaning she will be eligible for parole in 47 years when she is 67 years old.
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Before the sentencing, her defense attorneys had argued for a concurrent sentence, and the 20-year-old Utah woman read a statement in which she addressed Brittney Bergeron, the girl who survived the attack in Mesquite but is a paraplegic. Bergeron was not present in the courtroom.
"My heart goes out to you. I'm sorry for everything," Maestas said. "The only positive aspect of this entire situation is the courage and perseverance you've demonstrated."
Maestas was critical of the child's mother. Maestas said she was glad Brittney now is supervised by a responsible adult, referring to Brittney's foster mother.
Brittney was home alone with her half sister, when Maestas persuaded her to open the door of their family's trailer in the Casablanca RV park on Jan. 22, 2003. Maestas and her older brother, Beau Maestas, attacked Brittney and her half sister, Kristyanna Cowan, with knives.
David Schwartz, chief deputy district attorney, said that "it was Monique who was able to get Brittney to open the door" by telling her that her mother had been seriously injured.
He said Monique Maestas was responsible for most of the 19 stab wounds that Brittney suffered.
District Attorney David Roger said he did not find Monique Maestas' apology sincere after her previous antics in court, which included flipping off a Review-Journal photographer.
"I certainly haven't seen it (sincere remorse) the entire time we've been litigating this case, and her picture that was displayed in the Las Vegas Review-Journal really says it all," Roger said.
The reason the Maestas siblings attacked the girls was because earlier that evening, the girls' mother, Tamara Schmidt, and her boyfriend had sold the them bogus methamphetamine for $125, 23-year-old Beau Maestas has said. Instead of methamphetamine, the buy turned out to be salt, he has said.
He was sentenced to death in August for the murder of Kristyanna.
He was back in Mosley's courtroom Thursday to be sentenced on a robbery charge and for the attempted murder of Brittney. Mosley gave Beau Maestas a 45-year sentence for those charges.
His death sentence is automatically appealed to the state Supreme Court.
His defense lawyers told Mosley that Beau Maestas was a product of a damaged upbringing but could be rehabilitated. During his last trial, Maestas' attorneys told the court how he was conceived on a conjugal visit and raised by a mother, who did drugs with him as a child.
Hours after the jury sentenced her brother to death, Monique Maestas pleaded guilty to murder and attempted murder with a deadly weapon charges. She said she wanted to spare Brittney the pain of testifying again.
"Monique was very concerned about the victim coming into testify," said her lawyer, Alzora Jackson, who added her client can relate to Brittney better than most.
Jackson told the courtroom that Monique Maestas' terrible upbringing had not yet been brought to the court's attention as her brother's had. Monique Maestas, who was 16 at the time of the attack, had been sexually molested multiple times as a child, she said.
Her 27-year-old sister, Misty Maestas of Utah, was in court Thursday and said she too was sexually assaulted as a child, though not as often as her little sister, who she said had four attackers.
Between her ninth and 13th birthdays, Monique Maestas was molested by her mother's 6-foot-3-inch, 300-pound live-in boyfriend, Jackson and Misty Maestas said.
Misty Maestas said the sentencing is what she and her siblings had expected from the judge. She said the entire family knew that they must pay for what they did.
"For me and for my brother and sister, I'm so sorry this has happened," Misty Maestas said.
Steve Caruso, the lawyer who represents Brittney's mother, Tamara Schmidt, said Schmidt "is disappointed that Monique Maestas would ever have the chance to see the light of day."
Schmidt has been in prison for about a year, as she is serving a four- to 12-year sentence for child neglect. Witnesses at Schmidt's trial described her as a mother who frequently left her children alone to gamble and who injected methamphetamine with the children nearby.
"She just misses her daughter," Caruso said.
Schmidt keeps the right to communicate with her daughter, who is now a freshman in high school. Caruso said the mother and daughter have phone conversations, but Brittney does not want to visit her in prison.
The teenager has told District Judge Kathy Hardcastle she wants to be adopted by her foster mother.
"Brittney is doing fabulous," said Kim Coats, Bergeron's court-appointed special advocate.
She said she could not disclose details about the case but said that the teen still wants -- and her attorney is still working toward -- an open adoption.
"Brittney doesn't have a revengeful spirit. I don't think she really wanted any of them (the Maestas) to die. Obviously, she's glad they're not getting out anytime soon, but she's ready to get this behind her. She's tired of being in the paper."
