1st County Man Charged Under ‘3 Strikes’ Gets Life

WESTMINSTER — The first man in Orange County to be charged under the state’s “three strikes” law was sentenced Friday to 25 years to life in prison for shooting another man in the head with a flare gun during a barroom brawl.

Mario Veliz Rodriguez, a 30-year-old forklift repairman from Garden Grove, had prior convictions for second-degree robbery and assault with the intent to commit murder, according to court records.

Authorities said Rodriguez was drunk last March 20 and had been kicked out of a Garden Grove bar twice before he returned with a flare gun and shot another customer, Donald Moore, 23, in the side of the head. Moore was not critically injured.

Rodriguez’s lawyer had argued that he never intended to seriously harm the victim.

Rodriguez was the first Orange County man charged under the “three strikes” legislation signed by Gov. Pete Wilson last March 7. California voters overwhelmingly endorsed the same law in the November election.

The measure mandates a sentence of 25 years to life for felony offenders who have two or more previous convictions for serious or violent felonies, ranging from burglary to murder.

Orange County Superior Court jurors who convicted Rodriguez in January of felony assault with a deadly weapon in connection with the shooting were not told of his prior convictions or about his potential sentence.