A 40-year-old Beeville man with four previous DWI convictions was sentenced to 12 years in prison last week after a jury found him guilty of once again driving while intoxicated.

The eight-man, four-woman jury spent less than an hour deliberating Jeffery Wayne Markert’s guilt or innocence on Tuesday before finding him guilty of his fifth felony DWI offense.

The eight-man, four-w“I’m very grateful to the jury for finding this habitual drunk guilty,” said said Assistant District Attorney James Sales III, who prosecuted the case on behalf of the state. “This is Mr. Markert’s sixth DWI arrest and fifth DWI conviction. I’m also very grateful to Judge (Mike) Welborn for setting a very stiff sentence of 12 years so that our community will be safe from Mr. Markert for a very long period of time.”

Jury selection began Monday and testimony began Tuesday morning. Jurors returned later that afternoon with their guilty verdict.

Markert waived his right to have the same jury decide his punishment and asked Welborn to decide his fate.

Sales asked Welborn to sentence Markert to 14-16 years in prison.

Markert’s attorney, Boyd Bauer of Beeville, asked Welborn to consider probation for his client.

However, Keane Monroe with the adult probation department testified on behalf of the state during the sentencing portion of the trial and noted that Markert had been arrested repeatedly for DWI, and had repeatedly failed to follow the terms of his probation.

According to court records, Markert was convicted on Nov. 9, 1993, in Nueces County on two felony DWI charges and placed on probation.

Markert was serving probation when he was arrested again for DWI in 2002 in Bee County and sentenced to probation.

He was serving probation when he was again arrested for DWI. His probation was revoked on March 1, 2005, and he was sentenced to four years in prison.

He was serving parole when he was arrested on March 14, 2009, in Bee County for DWI.

After Monroe’s testimony, Judge Welborn sentenced Markert to 12 years in prison.

During a bench trial Tuesday, Welborn sentenced Gerard Guerrero to seven years in prison for violating the terms of his probation after he was found guilty of felony DWI — his second such offense.

Guerrero, 44, was convicted of driving while intoxicated on Aug. 8, 2002, and sentenced to nine years probation and fined $500. He had two previous DWI convictions prior to the 2002 offense, both of them misdemeanors.

However, he was arrested on Sept. 19, 2009, and charged with driving while intoxicated — a violation of the terms of his probation. An officer said Guerrero was operating a motorcycle at high speed while intoxicated on that date, a third degree felony offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

The Bee County District Attorney’s office filed a motion to revoke Guerrero’s probation in connection with the arrest. If he was found guilty of doing so, he could have been sentenced to nine years in prison.

Guerrero agreed to accept a plea bargain on Tuesday that called for him to admit to violating the terms of his probation and plead guilty to his latest DWI offense in exchange for serving one seven-year prison term instead of facing a nine-year sentence and a 10-year sentence.

Beeville attorney Jose Aliseda was appointed to represent Guerrero. Assistant District Attorney Deborah Branch prosecuted the case on behalf of the state.

A 40-year-old Beeville woman was also found guilty Tuesday of driving while intoxicated and sentenced to three years of community service and a fine of $1,000.

Brenda Ann Ramirez agreed to accept a plea bargain in which she would plead guilty to the offense in exchange for having a charge of evading arrest with a vehicle dismissed and serve probation instead of a prison term.

The plea bargain agreement accepted by Welborn calls for Ramirez to enroll in outpatient drug and alcohol counseling.

Ramirez was arrested on May 14, 2009, by a Beeville police officer who spotted her car driving on the wrong side of the road and almost hit another car.

Because there was a child younger than 15 years old in the car at the time, what would have been a misdemeanor DWI offense was enhanced to a state jail felony offense punishable by up to two years in prison.