Odessan gets 40 years in kidnapping

Dec. 9—An Odessa man who kept his girlfriend hostage at gunpoint for several hours last year was sentenced to 40 years in prison Thursday.

It took the jury just 30 minutes Wednesday to convict Nathan Sandoval, 25, of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and aggravated kidnapping with a deadly weapon in connection with two incidents that took place in March 2021.

Sandoval had been facing 25 years to life in prison. He'll be eligible for parole after serving half his sentence.

Sandoval maintained his innocence throughout the trial, suggesting his victim's and her family set him up.

Assistant Ector County District Attorneys Kevin Schulz and Henry Eckels presented evidence Sandoval was upset the mother of his child, Abigail Leyva, wanted nothing to do with him upon his release from prison and was angered she'd taken a job at Jaguar's, an adult entertainment club.

Jurors heard testimony he pointed a gun at Leyva's brother demanding to know where she was one night and 36 hours later shot out the window of her car in the process of kidnapping her.

Leyva testified that during her five-hour ordeal she was terrified for her life and she shared with jurors threatening texts he sent her in the days leading up to her kidnapping and in the month it took to find him afterward.

In seeking a lengthy sentence for Leyva, Schulz presented jurors court documents showing Sandoval's convictions for such crimes as possession of marijuana, resisting arrest, evading police with a vehicle, providing police false identification and unlawful possession of body armor by a felon. He also went into the multiple times jailers found items in his cell that could be used as weapons, including screws and razors.

Sandoval has twice served prison sentences after failing to successfully complete probation. The kidnapping happened five days after he was released the second time.

Jurors also learned an Ector County Sheriff's Office detention officer found letters in his cell in which he was trying to convince someone to kill Leyva and her brothers prior to trial. The letters also discussed Sandoval's plan to escape.

Leyva positively identified the handwriting on the letters as Sandoval's.

Former detention officer Manuel Escamilla testified he found a metal shower rack hidden in Sandoval's mattress, razors secreted in a pair of boxers and screws that had been removed from the locking mechanism on Sandoval's cell door.

"I'm going to kill the (expletive). I'm going to use you or whoever and I'm not going to stop until she's dead or until somebody kills me," Sandoval wrote in one of the letters.

Sandoval told the intended recipient of the letter where Leyva and her brother Adrian worked and what Adrian Leyva drove. He also told him to kill the pair in front of his daughter, who is now 4.

Sandoval wrote that after his escape he knew someone with a lot of cash and $300,000 worth of gold and silver he could rob.

During questioning from defense attorney Johanna Curry, a tearful Leyva acknowledged their daughter loves Sandoval, misses him and cries out for him.

Leyva acknowledged she's seen Sandoval get over his anger in the past, but was not allowed to answer the question as to whether she thinks he could have gotten over his anger since his arrest because she'd only be speculating.

Curry pointed out Leyva wasn't physically injured in March 2021 and asked Leyva for proof Sandoval has threatened her. An incredulous Leyva reminded Curry of the text messages and gestured toward the jail cell letters.

"Do you believe Nathan loves his daughter?" Curry asked.

"That don't seem like love," Leyva cried out, again pointing at the letters.

When Sandoval took the stand he described his past criminal convictions as youthful indiscretions, saying he thought he knew it all back then.

He said it was Leyva who initiated their sexual relationship when she was 14 and he was 19 and while his girlfriend, her older sister, was out of the state.

Sandoval told Curry that while in prison he took numerous classes, became a barber and was respected by inmates and guards alike. Both times he was released from prison, he said he was determined to be a better man and father.

He got a bullet proof jacket after he was released from prison the first time because as a felon he isn't allowed to own guns and wanted to make sure he would be there for his daughter if he got shot, Sandoval said.

"There's a lot of crazy people out there," Sandoval said.

His plan upon his release from prison in March 2021 was to get a commercial's driver's license, Sandoval testified.

His mother and daughter picked him up from the Greyhound station and he spent the next few days playing with his little girl and picking her pre-K outfits out.

Things went down hill though, he said.

"I didn't know Abigail was mad at me for the fact I had another child," after their daughter was born, Sandoval said.

When he gets to prison this time, Sandoval said he'd work on getting his general equivalency diploma and as many certificates as he can.

"I'd like to ask y'all to please show leniency on me. I hope you can find it in your hearts to give me the minimum so I can come out and be a better man and a better daddy to my daughter," Sandoval said.

He said nobody is perfect.

During cross-examination from Schulz, Sandoval reiterated it was Leyva who "came on" to him and said he wasn't thinking about the age difference when he and Leyva began their relationship.

"So it's her fault your penis became erect and entered her vagina?" Schulz asked.

"No comment," Sandoval said.

When asked again, Sandoval said he couldn't recall.

Sandoval again denied kidnapping Leyva or threatening her via text or video.

The video of a man in a Day of the Dead mask waving a gun and threatening Leyva, "doesn't show my face and doesn't sound anything like me," Sandoval said.

After his second release from prison Sandoval said Leyva was sending people to his home to harass him and "get me out of my character."

He only showed up at Leyva's brother's apartment to "set things straight" by telling Leyva he didn't want to rekindle their relationship; he only wanted to co-parent with her.

At first Sandoval told Schulz he ran from police the day of his arrest in April 2021 because he didn't know they were police and he didn't know their intentions. He then said he ran because he didn't "want to be accused of something he didn't do."

He also told jurors Leyva lied when she said that after his first prison term he collected guns, stuck her with a samurai sword and pointed a gun at his grandfather and a toddler one day. He repeatedly denied the latter incident until Schulz pulled out a sheriff's office report about the incident.

He said the sword incident was "irrelevant" because Leyva couldn't prove it.

Sandoval said someone else wrote the letters found in his cell, someone else removed the screws that were found and it was the jailers' fault they didn't collect the razors that were discovered. He called the Ector County jail system "corrupt."

He also said there's nothing in the jail's rules that says he can't use power sockets and wires to heat up coffee and cook in his cell.

Yes, he did stick a plastic item into the locking mechanism on his door last December, Sandoval said. He wanted to take two showers a day and jailers wouldn't let him.

"So you're gonna do what you want to do, to heck with the rules, right?" Schulz asked him.

When he "cold-cocked" another inmate, Sandoval said it was because the jailers had "improperly" housed him with a child molester.

"They were wrong on their end," Sandoval said.

When asked how he could judge a suspected child molester when he, himself, began having sex with Leyva when she was 14, Sandoval replied, "I don't feel like that because it was nothing like that, sir."