HOUSTON – Victor Cuevas, the man whose name drew national headlines after he fled with a tiger from a west Houston neighborhood in 2021, has learned his fate for murdering a man in Fort Bend County nearly five years ago.
A jury sentenced him Tuesday to 18 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Cuevas, 27, was found guilty of murder last week in the death of Oseikhuemen Omobhude, 20, who prosecutors say was shot several times on July 14, 2017, in a restaurant parking lot near Richmond. Omobhude was able to walk to another nearby restaurant, where help was called.
Omobhude died after being taken to Memorial Hermann Hospital – Katy.
According to Fort Bend County detectives arrested Cuevas on July 28, 2017.
While Cuevas was out on bond, an incident involving a tiger named India thrust him into the spotlight. Investigators said, on May 9, 2021, India got loose and was seen roaming around a residential neighborhood. As police were arriving to the scene, Cuevas fled with the tiger but was later apprehended and charged with evading arrest.
That arrest prompted prosecutors to request that bond be revoked on the murder charge. Two days later, Cuevas made bond in connection to the evading arrest charge and was released from a Fort Bend County Jail.
According to the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office, Cuevas had been booked in the Fort Bend County Jail on five other occasions for violation of his bond after the 2017 murder charge.
However, after a lengthy court appearance on May 14, 2021, a judge revoked the murder bond and ordered Cuevas back to jail, where he remained up until his sentencing.
The punishment phase in the murder case began Wednesday with jurors hearing from three witnesses prosecutors presented — a bond supervision officer, an investigator at the Fort Bend County District Attorney’s Office and a jail detention division officer.
According to the assistant district attorney, the jury found that sudden passion existed during punishment deliberations, which reduces the punishment range one degree (to a 2nd-degree felony, with two to 20 years in prison).
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