Juan Soria took part of the 1991 killings of his former girlfriend.

He was convicted of two murders and sat through the impassioned speeches of family members describing their loss, but still Juan Rodriguez Soria insists he is innocent.
“God knows I’m not guilty,’’ Soria, using a Spanish-speaking translator, told a judge at his sentencing today.
Orange County Superior Court Judge James Stotler didn’t buy it, even though Soria, 37, didn’t pull the trigger.
He sentenced Soria to 50 years to life in prison for his part in the shooting deaths of Altagracia Felix and Javier Contreras nearly 15 years ago.
In March, Soria was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder for his role in the Aug. 25, 1991, murders.
Today, the judge called Soria an “active defendant” who “clearly aided and abetted” his brother-in-law by following Soria’s former girlfriend and her new boyfriend home from a Buena Park bar. Soria then watched as the couple were shot to death, the judge said.
Two sisters orphaned by the shooting – the daughters of Altagarcia Felix – as well as a son of Javier Contreras spoke at the sentencing.
Rosie Hurtado, 33, showed a poster-sized collage of photos of her mother, and Contreras, her stepfather.
“She came to this country for a better fortune and unfortunately found death,’’ Hurtado said of her mother, who emigrated from Mexico.
Flora Ibarra, now 30, paused several times while talking, in order to collect herself.
“I needed her still, I needed him still,’’ Ibarra said of her mother and Contreras. “I was only 15. I had to grow up so fast.”
Rene Contreras decided this morning to speak about the loss of his father. He was 16 when Contreras died.
“We never had a father-son moment,’’ he said quietly.
Soria faced forward and didn’t look at the family members. But he did cry.
During the trial, witnesses testified that Soria and his brother-in-law, Francisco Patino, followed the victims when Felix chose to leave a Stanton bar with Contreras rather than stay with Soria. The couple were gunned down in their car.
Patino and Soria fled to their small hometown in Mexico, but Soria was captured in Florida in 2004 and extradited to Orange County for trial.
Patino, who fired the shots that killed Felix and Contreras, died last month in a shootout with police after a bar disturbance in Villa Purificacion municipality, south of Jalisco, according to Mexican news reports.