Youth Gets 15 Years in Prison in Crime Spree

A 17-year-old Camarillo youth was sentenced to 15 years in state prison Tuesday for his involvement in a cross-county crime spree that ended with the random shooting of a Moorpark man.

Jose Duarte, tried only for robbery in a case that involved three other suspects, was convicted of robbing a suspected gang member at a Somis market, Deputy Dist. Atty. Matthew J. Hardy said.

The 30-minute spree started as an attempted robbery Dec. 3 at a Taco Bell restaurant in Camarillo, then migrated to Somis, where Duarte robbed a man.

“He approached a person he knew from Juvenile Hall at a pay phone at the Somis Market, asked him what [gang affiliation] he claimed and issued kind of a gang challenge,” Hardy said.

Before the night was over, the carload of teenagers had shot and killed a 25-year-old Moorpark man they mistook for a gang member. One accomplice has pleaded guilty to murder and another faces a murder trial later this month.

Prosecutors first sought to use Duarte’s juvenile record against him, filing the robbery charge as a “three-strikes” case. But a judge later ruled that Duarte’s juvenile offenses could not be considered strikes. Despite his age, he was tried and convicted as an adult.