Boat driver ordered to repay the state

ELLENSBURG -- A Yakima boater blamed for a 2006 accident that killed a jet skier should pay restitution to the state of just over $23,000, a judge ruled Monday.

The figure ordered by Kittitas County Superior Court Judge Scott Sparks represented 10 percent of the $233,541 in medical bills, which taxpayers footed under the state's Crime Victims' Compensation program.

The ruling was in addition to $33,426 that boater Jose Jesus Heredia Barajas earlier agreed to pay to the parents of jet skier Matthew Jordan, a 25-year-old from Yakima who died 10 days after the accident in the Roza recreation area of the Yakima River Canyon.

Witnesses told authorities that Jordan was separated from his personal watercraft when he was struck by a boat and suffered massive injuries from the propeller.

The restitutions are part of the criminal case against Barajas, 35, who was sentenced last year to six months for his plea to charges of boating while intoxicated and fourth-degree assault.

The assault charge was a substantial reduction from the original charge of homicide by watercraft. In offering the plea, Kittitas County Prosecutor Greg Zempel said it was hard to pin down the role that Barajas' drinking -- his blood-alcohol level of .10 percent was just over the legal limit of .08 percent -- had played in causing the accident.

Zempel also noted that Barajas, a married father of three, had no criminal history and had immediately cooperated with authorities in the aftermath of the accident.