WENATCHEE — Juan M. González-González was convicted Wednesday of manslaughter in the death of a man who came to his aid last summer.

A Chelan County jury of eight women and four men found González, 51, guilty of throwing a single punch June 2 that knocked José Guadalupe García-Sevilla unconscious, causing him to fracture his skull against the pavement when he fell near the intersection of Ferry and Mission streets. The Mexican-born repairman, 53, died the next day.

The jury, which deliberated just two hours, found that González attacked García while he was acting under the legal definition of a Good Samaritan, approaching González to help with a van that had irreparably stalled on Ferry Street next to the El Tapatillo taco truck where García was chatting with the owner.

González punched García unconscious, then punched and scuffled with Wenatchee Police Officer Jared Reinfeld when he came to investigate the scene. The jury convicted González of third-degree assault and attempting to disarm a police officer based on that latter confrontation.

González has been jailed since his arrest. He was unrestrained throughout his trial, but appeared in court with legs shackled and his wrists chained to his waist to hear the verdict, with six court security and jail officers standing by.

He faces at least six and a half to eight and half years in prison for the manslaughter conviction alone, with Chelan County Prosecutor Gary Riesen now free to seek added time under the state’s Good Samaritan statute. That measure allows heavier penalties for defendants convicted of attacking others who are in the act of giving aid. The maximum sentence is life.

González is also known as Ricardo Hernandez, with a different birthdate that would set his age at 47. He behaved erratically after punching García, witnesses said — pacing around the van and the taco stand, making bizarre hand gestures at Reinfeld as he checked García’s condition, and saying “Viva Colombia” to bystanders.

González’s public defense attorney, Bradley Drury, offered no testimony to rebut the four eyewitnesses who recounted the attacks on García and Reinfeld in court. Instead, Drury argued González’s single punch didn’t itself create a “substantial risk of death” under the definition of first-degree manslaughter.

“How often do we hear about a death caused by one punch?” Drury asked the jury in closing. “How do we accept it as a substantial risk of death when our experience shows it is not?”

He also said García wasn’t necessarily acting as a Good Samaritan, since no one heard what passed between him and González when the two shook hands.

“That is insufficient to prove that he was a Good Samaritan beyond any speculation on our part,” Drury told the jury in closing arguments Wednesday. “... It doesn’t make him any less of a victim. It just means the state hasn’t proved it beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Out of the jury’s hearing, Drury had earlier moved to exclude the Good Samaritan consideration. Superior Court Judge John Bridges turned down the request.

Riesen said testimony showed García was one of a number of people at the scene who were moving to help González. His handshake alone was a gesture of trust that left him vulnerable.

“What’s his return for this friendly gesture? He gets smacked, hard,” Riesen told the jury. “... His left hand was in his pocket, he was so unaware there was a potential for being hurt here.”

González, who listened to his trial through a Spanish translator, did not testify in his own defense, leaving the question of why he attacked García unanswered.

Reinfeld, a 6-foot-2-inch uniformed patrolman, testified that the 5-foot-6-inch González nearly got the better of him in their fistfight. He said he seized González’s right wrist to handcuff him, but González jerked Reinfeld close and threw a left-handed punch to his face that staggered him.

González then punched him several more times near his temples. Reinfeld testified his own return blows were fouled as González slipped inside his guard and appeared to tug at his holstered firearm.

“I’ve been in several fights, and never been in one like this,” Reinfeld said from the stand.

Reinfeld said he managed to get some distance from González and pull his pistol, but there were too many bystanders behind González to safely take aim. Instead, he pulled a Taser left-handed and fired. Only one barb of the two-pronged electroshock weapon struck González. The other fell to the ground, but when González stepped on it, he completed the circuit and fell convulsing.

Outside the courtroom, García’s two daughters embraced Riesen in gratitude. González will be sentenced March 6.

Jefferson Robbins: 664-7123

robbins@wenatcheeworld.com