Hutchinson ? A former Hutchinson man who disappeared 20 years ago before going on trial for a fatal traffic accident was sentenced to two to five years in prison.

Miguel R. Rangel Zubia, 41, was sentenced Friday two months after being arrested re-entering the country.

Last month, Rangel Zubia pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated vehicular homicide in the death of his pregnant wife, Sanjuana Lorena Velazquez, 28. She was killed on New Year’s Day in 1988.

Rangel Zubia was originally bound over for a June 1988 trial but disappeared before the trial started, prosecutors said.

In exchange for his plea, prosecutors had agreed to dismiss the charge of failing to appear. Since the crime took place in 1988, Rangel Zubia was subject to that year’s sentencing laws.

“Any type of involuntary manslaughter or aggravated vehicular homicide case is a sad, sad case,” Reno County District Attorney Keith Schroeder said. “It’s usually a family member or a friend that is killed.”

Defense attorney Janis Knox said that Rangel Zubia has no criminal history before or after the incident and that he has been a law-abiding citizen of Mexico, where he owns a candy store and has a wife and three children.

Border patrol agents took Rangel Zubia of Chihuahua, Mexico, into custody in May when a fingerprint check linked him to an outstanding warrant.

Schroeder had said he often reviewed the case over the years and regularly renewed the arrest warrant. He said that Rangel Zubia’s blood-alcohol content at the time of arrest was 0.103 percent, but the legal limit in Kansas at the time was 0.10 percent.

Many of the court officials, attorneys and parties involved with the case are deceased.