SANTA CRUZ – A judge on Tuesday sentenced a Santa Cruz man convicted of involuntary manslaughter to two years of probation and prison.

Joseph Young pleaded no contest in September to fatally stab 44-year-old Todd Kolibas on April 19 at a picnic area in DeLaveaga Park. As part of a plea deal with the Santa Cruz County District Attorney’s office, the charges were downgraded from murder to pretrial when new evidence came to light in the case, Assistant District Attorney Johanna said at the time Schonfield.

Outside the courtroom, a trio of Kolibas’ longtime friends wearing black hoodies with photos of Kolibas printed on the front and back left the sentencing hearing in disappointment. Jeneen Slosson said she felt Santa Cruz failed her friend who once cared for her during cancer treatment.

“To hear that his life is worth a $2,400 fine and 100 days in jail is just disgusting,” Slosson said of the sentence.

Carla Melan’s daughter, Siena Melan, 12, wrote a letter read aloud to the court and Judge Stephen Siegel in which she described Kolibas as “giving me the knowledge in life that I will not be turned in in schools”. Siena Melan wrote that she feared she too could be hurt if she looked at a man like Young the wrong way while walking to and from school.

“When I found out he was killed, it scared me knowing that the man who killed him is on the loose and that we don’t know he won’t hurt or kill again,” Siena Melan wrote.

In a joint statement written by Slosson and Carla Melan, read during the hearing, the women wrote of Kolibas’ compassion for his friends and ability to bring lightness to even the worst of times.

“He was a light in the lives of so many of us, a kind and gentle soul who went out of his way to make those around him feel seen and appreciated,” Slosson and Carla Melan wrote.

Kolibas was very energetic, sometimes at the wrong times and could be like a teenager who you had to shout ‘stop’ at, the three friends said outside court. However, Kolibas’ “good, bad and ugly” was not worth taking his life, Melan said.

“They look at it like he was just a homeless drug addict and it didn’t matter if he died,” Slosson said. “But that wasn’t it. Todd was much loved.”