A 32-year-old man was sentenced Friday to 29 years in prison for robbing a Secret Service agent in Tustin in June.
Jamonte Fitzgerald Johnson, 32, was found guilty on Oct. 28 of robbery and possession of a firearm by a felon, with jurors also finding a true sentencing enhancement for personal use of a firearm. He was sentenced to 155 days in prison.
Co-defendant Eshon Dwayne Dodson, 21, is scheduled to be sentenced on January 10. He was convicted in the same trial for robbery, with a reduced sentence, for possession of a firearm during robbery.
Bertrand Claude Bell, 38, was sentenced to six years in prison in August after pleading guilty to robbery and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He accepted a plea deal from Orange County Superior Court Judge William Scott Zidbeck.
Bell has a previous conviction for attempted robbery in December 2004.
A U.S. Secret Service agent was returning from a mission in Tustin on Saturday night when he was robbed at gunpoint by multiple assailants. Conan Nolan reports on NBC4 News on Monday, June 17, 2024 at 6 p.m.
Tustin police responded to a report of six gunshots in the area of Stratus Lane and West Wind Drive on June 15 at approximately 9:35 p.m., prosecutors said in court documents. When officers arrived, the victim identified himself as a Secret Service agent and pointed to a gun that had been dropped by one of the suspects, prosecutors said.
The agent told police he was driving a department-issued vehicle to his home in Tustin after working at a fundraiser for President Joe Biden in Los Angeles that included former President Barack Obama.
According to prosecutors, the investigator returned home around 9:30 p.m. and encountered the robber as he approached the front door. When the car stopped, one of the suspects jumped out, ran up to the victim and demanded at gunpoint, “Give me back my bag,” referring to the laptop computer the man was carrying.
Prosecutors said investigators asked the suspects to get out of the vehicle, but they did not comply. When the second suspect got out of the vehicle, investigators, concerned that the suspect was armed, fired seven shots into the vehicle.
The attackers took the agents’ cell phones, radios, radio holsters, lapel pins, flashlights, gun magazines, and other items.
Police tracked the suspect using the iPhone’s capabilities and found the cellphone at Jamboree and Walnut Avenue, prosecutors said. Investigators also found items nearby, including a radio and a flashlight.
Authorities were able to find a DNA match on the dropped gun that linked Johnson to the robbery, prosecutors argued.
Dodson was the driver and Johnson was the front seat passenger when they got out of the car and robbed a Tustin police sergeant. Ryan Newton said. The agent managed to pull out a service revolver and fire at Bell, who “appeared to be struck by the victim’s gunfire.”
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