Judge tells defendant he’s ‘very lucky’ to get shorter sentence for Mission Bay death

A man who pled guilty to causing another man’s death after an altercation in Mission Bay was sentenced Friday to six years in state prison.

Lee Eduardo Orozco, 36, was sentenced for the 2023 death of Eric Nelson, 51, who died in a hospital three weeks after prosecutors say he was beaten and pushed onto sharp rocks.

Nelson, who had been fishing in the North Cove area when the attack occurred, sustained injuries that included broken ribs, a punctured lung and broken jaw bones.

Orozco was not arrested in connection with Nelson’s death until December 2024. A motive for the attack remains unknown.

Orozco was initially charged with murder, but later pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter.

Superior Court Judge Joan Weber told Orozco on Friday that he was “a very lucky man” and referenced that a lone eyewitness to the attack was ultimately deemed not competent enough to testify in the case.

Weber said she believed Orozco otherwise would have been convicted of first-degree murder and received a 25-year-to-life sentence, “which is what you deserved,” she said.

“This appeared to the court to be a premeditated murder of a helpless man and then you fled and left him there to suffer for another three weeks in a hospital bed,” the judge said.

Along with the six-year prison term for Nelson’s death, Orozco was sentenced to three years for an assault that took place while Orozco was in county jail. The three-year term will be served concurrently with the six-year sentence.