Two Felony Cases, One Residential Burglary, Probation

Our client, age 25, had developed an addiction to heroin and fentanyl over the years.  While he grew up in Palos Verdes, he certainly was not the college graduate that his parents envisioned when they bought a home in Palos Verdes for its great school system. 

While in high school, he spent an enormous amount of time at Mammoth, even joining the Mammoth Ski Team as a snow boarder and developing friendships that led to drug use in Mammoth.  At age 19, he was arrested and convicted of possession for sales of a controlled substance and thereafter entered a residential drug rehabilitation program.

By age 25, he was using drugs again regularly and living at home.  He worked as a marijuana dispensary delivery driver and carried a gun, which he lawfully purchased and registered to himself.

One day while returning home, he noticed a driver behind him tailgating him very closely and because quite angry at the driver.  Our client made a turn off the main street to go home and the other driver followed our client.  Our client made another turn and the other driver followed our client again, all the while tailgating very closely.

Finally, before our client arrived home, he pulled over and rolled down his window to allow the other driver to pass him.  In lowering his window, the other driver pulled up alongside our client and lowered his window, too.

Our client then yelled at the other driver to be a safer driver.  The other driver, an Asian man, may have simply been a bad driver and tailgated everyone, all the time.  Our client then pulled out his handgun and raised it to show the other driver that he regarded the other driver as a serious danger.

The other man then put his car in park and got out, yelling to our client to “shoot me, shoot me.”  Our client was shocked at this reaction and left the scene.

The other man then got back in his car and drove off, only to turn around and drive back to our client’s car, which was now parked.  The man then got out and our client saw this from inside his house and exited the house, telling the other man to leave.  Our client then kicked his high-end Mercedes and allegedly brandished a knife at him.

The other man called 911 and very quickly, the Lomita Sheriff’s Department arrested our client and searched for the gun at our client’s parents’ home, even kicking open an expensive front door and damaging it, but not finding the gun.

Our client was arrested on charges of assault with a semiautomatic firearm (Penal Code § 245(b)), a felony and a “Strike,” and felony vandalism, a violation of Penal Code § 594(a).

While out of bail for this first case, our client then allegedly burglarized a friend’s home in Manhattan Beach while the family was away in Mammoth for the weekend.  The homeowner lost several handguns, a laptop computer, several expensive watches, jewelry that had (alleged) great family value and several credit cards.  Many of the items, worth in total of about $50,000, were in a 115 pound safe that our client could not have carried out of the house alone.

Our client was later identified on store security videos using several of the credit cards at 7-11’s and trying to get cash advances, a violation of Penal Code § 530.5(a), unauthorized use of personal identifying information.

Our client was later arrested and charged in a second complaint with first-degree residential burglary (Penal Code § 459) and two counts of unauthorized use of personal identifying information (Penal Code § 530.5(a)).

The two cases were then heard at the same time and the People offered a resolution of four years and four months in state prison, with our client entering a plea to one strike.

Over the next year, however, our client entered a residential drug treatment facility for six months and then once released, got a part-time job at a prestigious local defense contractor (later being promoted to a full-time job), then enrolled in an outpatient treatment program and even enrolled in an online college course.  He also attended over 150 Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings and even took up a leadership role in the program, while getting a sponsor.

The Torrance judge presiding over both cases asked both sides to submit a sentencing memorandum for the client.  Greg prepared a sentencing memorandum, addressing each of the factors under the California Rules of Court. 

Our client then pled in the open, which meant he pled to two strikes, but was granted three years of probation by the judge with four years and four months in prison suspended, as well as many other obligations of formal probation (including continued drug treatment).  The judge required that our client first and foremost, however, pay the victim restitution for the losses, which was not insignificant, but the family resolved to do so, relieved that their son would be spared state prison.

For more information about the issues in this case, please click on the following articles: