OAKLAND — A woman’s charges have been lowered from murder to involuntary manslaughter, in a plea deal over the shooting death of her allegedly abusive boyfriend.
Yaeko Payne, 42, pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter in the death of 49-year-old James Rodriguez. In return for her plea, Payne was sentenced to three years in state prison, with credit for roughly 950 days already spent behind bars. She has the ability to lower her remaining sentence by 50 percent with good behavior, court records show.
Rodriguez was fatally shot May 30, 2023, near the RV where he lived on 100th Avenue, near Pearmain Street, police said at the time. Multiple eyewitnesses told police that she and Rodriguez argued and that threatened to kill her, then struck her in the face, in a methamphetamine-induced “rage.” She suffered a bloody lip, the witnesses reportedly told authorities.
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After further argument, Payne fired once at Rodriguez, but missed. When he said, “Did you just shoot me, (expletive),” she fired again, striking him in the shoulder, prosecutors said in court records.
Rodriguez bled to death from the shoulder wound. As he bled, Paeko allegedly stood over him, and told him, “I f—ing love you.”
“I told you to stop doing this s— to me, stop cheating on me, stop putting your hands on me,” Paeko said according to a “summarized statement” of her remarks filed by prosecutors. She began crying and said repeatedly, “He’s not dead,” authorities said.
Paeko will be placed on probation after serving the remainder of her sentence, court records show.
The gun she used to kill Rodriguez reportedly ended up in the possession of two eyewitnesses, who also turned up at the scene of an unrelated fatal shooting earlier this year, authorities said.
