A Louisiana judge has handed lengthy prison sentences to two people convicted of roles in a criminal enterprise that targeted New Orleans tourists led to the death of a reporter covering the 2025 Super Bowl there.

Nancy Miller, a state court judge, on Monday sentenced Danette Colbert, 49, to a total of 60 years in prison: fifty years for racketeering and a consecutive 10 years for negligent homicide in the death of Adan Manzano, a journalist for the Spanish-language news outlet Telemundo Kansas City.

Colbert’s accomplice, Rickey White, was sentenced to 45 years’ imprisonment for racketeering.

The sentences come just days after a jury in the suburban New Orleans community of Jefferson parish, Louisiana, convicted both Colbert and White, 35, for their roles in the 5 February 2025 death of Manzano, 27.

Manzano had traveled to the New Orleans area to cover the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl clash with the Philadelphia Eagles. He was found dead in his hotel room in Kenner, Louisiana, the suburb where New Orleans’ international airport is, days before the Chiefs lost the big game to the Eagles.

The Jefferson parish coroner’s office, whose jurisdiction includes Kenner, said Manzano died from positional asphyxiation. An autopsy found Xanax and alcohol in his system.

Prosecutors said Manzano was among the victims of a yearslong operation in which Colbert, White and a co-defendant who testified against them – Christian Anderson – targeted unsuspecting tourists in the city’s French Quarter. The group allegedly lured victims with the promise of sex before drugging and robbing them.

Prosecutors said the criminal enterprise dated back to 2012.

Manzano’s father addressed his son’s death at Monday’s sentencing via a videoconferencing platform. According to a statement from Jefferson parish district attorney Paul Connick’s office, Manzano’s father called the sentencing “a say day for me and my family”.

“May the laws of this country lock up the people that destroyed my life,” he testified. “I respectfully ask that you give them the sentencing they deserve.”

According to local news channel WVUE, the father added: “They snatched his dreams, life and family as we were seeing him happy and successful.”

Manzano’s mother, meanwhile, said: “I don’t want to say anything to the people that committed this crime, because they are beings of darkness, beings that don’t have God in their lives.

“But I don’t think they should go on with life causing harm and killing people – because I still can’t accept that Adan is not here … This loss, I’ll never overcome it. I don’t wish this on anybody, on any family.”

A cousin of Manzano, Carlos Castillo, reportedly said: “I want to look you guys in the face and say that you should pay your entire life for this … Every time the cell opens and you cannot see the light, you think of my cousin.”

Manzano’s wife, Ashleigh Boyd, was killed in an April 2024 car crash in Topeka, Kansas. A Topeka judge found Todd W Armstrong guilty of vehicular homicide, speeding and driving on the wrong side of the road after a one-day trial on 21 September, four days after the jury verdict in Manzano’s death in Louisiana.

Boyd and Manzano’s daughter – Eleanor, now three – is being raised by her maternal grandparents.

Months after Manzano’s death, Colbert received a 25-year prison sentence for being found to have violated her probation on a prior theft and fraud conviction and being classified a habitual offender.

Miller on Monday told Colbert that her “behavior in this matter [is] quite alarming”, according to WVUE.

“You were indifferent to the impact that your actions had,” Miller said. “That is evident by your consistent pattern in your criminal history. Apparently, you’ve been doing this for quite some time. It’s finally caught up to you with the death of one of your victims.”