Superior Court sign. (File photo by Chris Stone/Times of San Diego)
A man who snuck into a Linda Vista home and sexually assaulted a 5-year-old girl was sentenced Wednesday to 40 years and eight months in state prison.
Alejandro Jose Confesor, 24, had pleaded guilty to charges of lewd acts on a child and possession of child pornography stemming from the April 18, 2024 assault, which took place inside a Wellington Street home.
Deputy District Attorney Eric Bodnar called the defendant “a predator” and said, “This case truly is a parent’s worst nightmare.”
Along with prison, Confesor will be required to register as a sex offender.
According to testimony from a preliminary hearing held last year, he entered the home in the early morning hours and abused the child in her bedroom. He returned to the same home three days later around 3:30 a.m. and took items from the home’s garage.
Prosecutors say Confesor has no relationship to the home’s residents.
He was arrested the night of April 21 on Linda Vista Road, less than two miles from the home on Wellington.
During Confesor’s sentencing hearing, the girl’s mother said her daughter has suffered from nightmares and cannot sleep alone anymore.
For a time, she slept with shoes on to allow herself a better chance to kick intruders, her mother said.
The family home has since been outfitted with new locks, alarms and cameras. The girl’s mother said she has gone as far as setting up cans and bottles near doorways to trip up a potential trespasser and alert her to the danger.
The downtown San Diego Superior Court and satellite courts will have new download charges starting Jan. 1, 2021. (File photo by Chris Stone/Times of San Diego)
A jury has convicted a man of first-degree murder after he fatally stabbed his stepfather at their Rancho Bernardo home.
Pablo Johnson, 26, was found guilty on Tuesday of killing Michael Johnson, 61, at their Caminito Campana home on the evening of Jan. 28, 2024.
According to trial testimony, the victim sustained over 100 stab wounds and cuts, mostly to his head, face and neck.
A woman walking her dog just before 6 p.m. saw a bloody Michael Johnson draped over the railing of the home’s patio and called 911. Officers arrived a short time later and arrested Pablo Johnson, while Michael Johnson was pronounced dead at the scene.
Deputy District Attorney Cassidy McWilliams told jurors that the relationship between the defendant and victim had grown contentious over what she said was the defendant’s unwillingness to work or take care of chores around the residence.
Jurors were shown text messages between the pair that displayed escalating arguments over household chores and living expenses, which culminated in a physical altercation one day before the killing.
McWilliams said the defendant attacked his stepfather on Jan. 28 and stabbed him with enough force to break the knife into multiple pieces.
Deputy Public Defender Leanne Skirzynski said what occurred that evening was more akin to a mutual fight, which she said was sparked by the victim. She told jurors Michael Johnson had been consistently abusive to her client and had physically assaulted him on numerous prior occasions.
She said that yet another argument between the pair on Jan. 28 resulted in Michael Johnson charging at her client in the home’s kitchen, prompting Pablo Johnson to grab the first thing he could to defend himself, which was a knife.
Both men armed themselves with knives and during the ensuing melee, Skirzynski said, her client was “flailing” his knife, rather than targeting any particular place on his stepfather’s body. Another knife found near Michael’s body bore none of her client’s DNA, she said.
The prosecutor said that while Michael Johnson had multiple stab wounds and other injuries, Pablo Johnson had virtually no wounds to his body, other than a pair of small cuts to his hands, which she said were likely accidental self-inflicted wounds sustained during the fatal attack.
L-R, Kane Roldan and Elias Yanez. (Photos courtesy of GoFundMe)
An 18-year-old man accused of gunning down two teenage boys at a Chula Vista house party pleaded not guilty Wednesday to two counts of murder.
David Garcia is accused of opening fire on Kane Roldan, 15, and Elias Yanez, 17, at a Halloween party attended by more than 100 people. Police responded to the East Prospect Street home just after 11 p.m. to find both boys with gunshot wounds. The teens later died at a hospital.
Along with the murder counts, he faces a charge of negligently discharging a firearm for allegedly shooting into the air some time before the teens were shot. He also faces a special circumstance allegation of committing multiple murders.
If he is convicted of the murder counts, plus the special circumstance allegation, he would face life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty, should prosecutors pursue capital punishment.
At Garcia’s arraignment, Deputy District Attorney Jack Yeh said Garcia showed multiple people at the party that he had a gun tucked into his waistband.
Prior to the fatal shooting, the prosecutor said Garcia got into an altercation with someone, then fired the gun into the air to scare the person away.
Later, Garcia allegedly got into an fight with a friend of the victims. When the boys attempted to aid their friend, Garcia shot them both, Yeh said.
Garcia remains in custody without bail.
Family members of Roldan, of San Diego, and Yanez, of Imperial Beach, have created GoFundMe pages to assist with funeral costs and support their loved ones.
According to the fundraising pages, Roldan’s memorial will be on Nov. 24, while plans for Yanez’s service are pending.
Shoal Creek Elementary. (File photo courtesy of Shoal Creek Educational Foundation via Facebook)
A man was convicted Tuesday of sending emailed threats to commit a mass shooting at Shoal Creek Elementary School in Carmel Mountain Ranch.
A San Diego jury deliberated for about a day before finding Lee Lor, 40, guilty of a single felony count of making criminal threats for an email he sent in December 2023 that prompted a police response at the campus and Lor’s arrest later that day.
Lor is slated to be sentenced next month. The criminal threats count carries a maximum possible sentence of three years in state prison.
Prosecutors say the email was one of over 400 he sent over the course of several months stating he would commit a shooting at the school, located less than a mile from where Lor was living at the time.
The threatening email cited in the case stated that he was going “to commit mass shootings” at the school and listed Shoal Creek’s address.
Another email he sent stated, “I’m going to murder a bunch of children,” while another read, “Children are going to die and parents can’t do nothing about it. This will put a smile on my face.”
None of the emails Lor wrote was sent directly to the school. Instead, Lor replied to random spam emails in his inbox with nearly identical threats against Shoal Creek. One of the emails he replied to on Dec. 1 landed in the spam folder of a woman in Beverly Hills, who alerted police.
Lor’s defense attorney, Deputy Public Defender Lucas Hirsty, argued his client shouldn’t be found guilty because the email was not sent directly to the school and did not specifically threaten its principal, Harmeena Omoto, who is listed in a criminal complaint as the victim in the case.
Omoto testified last week that she felt “shock, disbelief, (and) fear” upon learning of the threat, which she said prompted campus officials to raise the fences surrounding its playground areas. She also said she now stands at the school’s front gates during on-campus events that are open to the public and personally checks each person attending the events to see if they have any connection with the school.
Hirsty argued that because the email lacked any reference to Omoto, Lor could not be found guilty under the law of threatening her. A judge dismissed the criminal case against Lor last year, saying that it requires a threat to specifically target an individual, but prosecutors later refiled the criminal threats count.
The defense attorney also argued that Lor’s practice of replying to spam emails was an outlet for his personal struggles and that he didn’t intend to threaten anyone or believe his messages were even being read.
Deputy District Attorney Savanah Howe said Lor was aware his messages would be taken seriously because six months before sending the email regarding Shoal Creek, Lor sent similar emails claiming a shooting was imminent at his workplace, which led officers to respond to Lor’s workplace.
Lor was not arrested at the time for the workplace-related emails, but the prosecutor said, “He knew this course of action, this conduct, would lead to the result that it did.”
She also argued that threats made to the school in turn threaten its occupants, and in particular, its principal.
“A threat to a group of human beings is necessarily a threat to their leader,” the prosecutor told jurors during closing arguments on Monday. “The defendant should not get a free pass just because he didn’t put Principal Omoto’s name in the threat.”
Though the prosecution wasn’t required to show Lor had any intention of carrying out the shooting, prosecutors said that after his arrest, Lor told officers he periodically thought about committing the shooting and how he would do it, but never could bring himself to go through with it.
Hirsty told the jury there was no law outlining that threats to a group represent threats to its leader.
“That’s an attempt for the government to minimize their burden because they know they don’t have the evidence to satisfy this element (of the penal code),” he said.
The case has led to a new law, that in an early form was sponsored by Assemblymember Darshana Patel, D-San Diego, San Diego District Attorney Summer Stephan, among others.
The bill was merged with a Senate bill, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Oct. 11. The new law clarifies that threats to schools, universities, places of worship, medical facilities and more are criminal even if a specific person isn’t identified as the target. Lor named only the school in his threatening emails.
Patel said her proposal was prompted by the Shoal Creek threats.
Criminal cases have been dismissed against fraternity members who were charged with intentionally setting one of the defendants on fire during a skit.
Prosecutors charged the four members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity following a party last year that involved lighting a fraternity pledge’s clothes on fire. The act left the pledge with third-degree burns.
The San Diego State University students initially faced felony charges that included recklessly causing a fire with great bodily injury, but a judge reduced the charges to misdemeanors earlier this year.
Superior Court Judge Dwayne Moring granted misdemeanor diversion for three of the students, which allows defendants to have their cases dismissed if they complete certain conditions.
He did so Tuesday after determining the defendants had completed a number of conditions that included volunteer work and maintaining full-time employment or school attendance. The defendant who set the fire was also required to take a fire safety course.
The student who was burned did not have to complete a diversion program for his case to be dismissed.
A District Attorney’s Office spokesperson said the dismissals and the granting of misdemeanor diversion occurred over the prosecution’s objections.
Lars Larsen, the student who was set on fire, filed a lawsuit earlier this year against the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, the California State University system and two of his co-defendants in the criminal case, among others.
Larsen alleges in his complaint that after the skit, his fellow fraternity members provided “inadequate first aid” by putting him inside a shower, wrapping him in an aluminum blanket and waiting around three hours before contacting emergency personnel.
Afterward, the fraternity members allegedly instructed others to delete videos or group chats regarding the incident.
The complaint states Larsen suffered burns to his legs and back that required skin grafts and long-term treatment for scarring and neuropathy.
At the time of the incident, the fraternity was on probation in connection with other hazing-related incidents and Larsen claims San Diego State failed to monitor the its activities and enforce sanctions. The lawsuit also alleges SDSU “has a longstanding and well-documented history of dangerous fraternity-related conduct” and cited the 2019 death of Dylan Hernandez, who consumed alcohol at a pledge party, then later fell from the top bunk of his dorm room bed and struck his head.
A hearing in the civil case is scheduled for later this month.