Lopez-Sanchez, who has pleaded innocent to all charges against him, admitted in a jailhouse interview with a San Francisco television station that he mistakenly fired the shot that struck 32-year-old Kate Steinle as she walked along Pier 14 with her father.
Lopez-Sanchez of Guanajuato, Mexico, listed in court papers as being either 45 or 52, is being held in lieu of $5 million bail.
A court-mandated preliminary examination of the evidence is scheduled for Aug. 25.
Lopez-Sanchez called out “not guilty, not guilty” in San Francisco Superior Court on Tuesday when the new charge, allegedly being a felon in possession of a firearm, was read out loud, according to the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper.
The new charge was added to the murder charge already pending against Lopez-Sanchez, who was in the process of being deported for a sixth time for illegally entering the United States when he was unexpectedly released in June.
He told KGO-TV that he found a 40-caliber handgun while he walked on the waterfront on July 1 and it mistakenly went off as he was handling it.
One of the bullets fired struck Steinle as she walked along Pier 14, which has been renovated into a popular walking pier with a commanding view of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
Steinle collapsed after being shot in the back and was rushed to San Francisco General Hospital, where she later died.
Lopez-Sanchez was arrested on the waterfront about a mile south of where Steinle was shot.
The shooting set off a national debate about illegal immigration after it was learned that Lopez-Sanchez had been deported many times but kept returning because of San Francisco’s status as a sanctuary city that does not voluntarily cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
A prominent U.S. Senator from San Francisco and a leading Republican presidential candidate weighed in on the case.
The gun turned out to have been stolen from a federal agent in a car burglary on a San Francisco street a few days before the shooting.
“There’s nothing in our investigation or review of the material in this case that changes our original opinion of this case — that this appears to be an accidental shooting,” Lopez-Sanchez’s attorney, Matt Gonzalez of the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, told the newspaper.
California’s senior senator, Dianne Feinstein, has called on San Francisco to relax its sanctuary policy and cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
“We should focus on deporting convicted criminals, not setting them loose on our streets,” she said.
Her counterpart, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, also called for a review of detention policies.
“For decades, I have supported deporting violent criminals, and I have always believed that sanctuary should not be given to felons,” Boxer said.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said the case demonstrated why the United States needed to build a wall along its border with Mexico.
