Gardena, Client Strangles Victim While He’s on Bail, 90 Days

Our client, age 39, had three children with his girlfriend, age 30. The children, two boys and girl, were six, four and two years old. The financial stress of raising a family and his unstable job as a carpenter made the home environment a place of constant argument.

In a Nutshell: Our client strangles his girlfriend and mother of their three children. At the time, our client was on probation for vandalism to his girlfriend’s car and own recognizance release for misdemeanor battery against her. Case resolved in Torrance Superior Court for 90 days in county jail.

While this seemed to resolve the case, it did not erase the police officers’ memory of our client and his disrespectful behavior toward them.

During probation, the client violated probation several times and probation was extended into 2017.


In early 2016, our client and his girlfriend got in an argument over one of their young boys sitting on a family room couch with his pants soaked from urinating on himself. The boy had just stopped using diapers and had an accident.

The argument escalated to the point that our client allegedly pushed down his girlfriend and kicked her on the leg. She pushed him back and called the police. The Gardena police department responded and, as coincidence would be, the same officers that our client had obstructed four years earlier arrived. The officers remembered our client, arrested our client and wrote up a report with multiple exaggerations.

Our client was cited out on a violation of Penal Code § 243(e)(1) (“Battery upon a Cohabitant or Spouse) with a promise to appear in the Torrance Superior Court several months later.

In the meantime, our client and his girlfriend got into a further physical altercation wherein our client allegedly choked his girlfriend, punched her in the face and told her he was going to kill her. The neighbors heard the commotion and called the Gardena Police Department.

The same officers as before responded, but when they arrived, our client left out the back door. A report was taken, wherein the girlfriend showed the police a large knot on her forehead and red marks on her neck.

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