Probation officer pleads guilty to felony DUI hit-and-run in death of Salinas transient.

A Monterey County Probation Department officer may soon be on probation herself—even reporting to the very office where she's worked for nine years.

That officer, Sonia Cano, 36, made a deadly choice to drink and drive while on the town with friends on Dec. 10 in Salinas, according to the Monterey County District Attorney's Office.

She and her friends visited several restaurants that night. Around 7pm they left a restaurant on North Main Street with Cano behind the wheel of her own car.

Soon after, she struck Salinas transient Alan Russell Ellis, 52, as he jaywalked across North Main Street.

Cano fled the scene, offering no help to the injured man. Ellis was rushed to  Natividad Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead from severe head trauma.

Cano turned herself in to the police three hours later and was arrested for felony vehicular manslaughter, felony driving under the influence causing injury and felony hit and run causing injury or death.

In Monterey County Superior Court on Jan. 31, Cano plead guilty to felony hit and run resulting in death and one misdemeanor DUI charge, according to the DA.

She is scheduled to be sentenced on March 7 by Superior Court Judge Andrew Liu to felony probation; the sentence could carry up to three years of probation and one year in the county jail.

Cano's been out on $300,000 bail since December, and was on paid administrative leave from the Monterey County Probation Department until Jan. 20 when it switched to unpaid leave.

The department has been conducting its own administrative investigation of the incident and is expected to finish soon now that Cano has pleaded guilty to the criminal charges, says Todd Keating, assistant chief probation officer. 

Once it's complete, a proposed discipline will be issued, and Cano will have an opportunity to argue against it or accept it, as outlined under the state mandated Peace Officers Bill of Rights.

As the court prepares for Cano's sentencing on March 7, Keating says her pre-sentencing report will likely be handled by probation officers in another county to avoid any appearance of favoritism by the Monterey County Probation Department, which is normally tasked with preparing such reports.

However, if Cano continues to live in Monterey County, her probation will be supervised by the same people she worked with. That responsibility, Keating says, will fall to a supervisor.