Monday, August 22, 2011

198 YEARS TO LIFE, THANKS TO HIS LAWYER

This ‘connoisseur of drugs’ obviously did a bang-up job in serving as his own attorney. Adding insult to injury, nobody even considered the fact that, following his escape from a prisoner transport van, he offered to be a security expert for the Sheriff’s Office.

JAIL ESCAPE LEADS TO 198 YEARS IN PRISON
By Michelle Durand

The Daily Journal
August 20, 2011

SAN MATEO, CALIF. -- A parolee who broke out of a jail transport van using a razor blade to escape a third-strike trial for armed robbery and later offered to be a security expert for the Sheriff’s Office was sentenced Friday to 198 years to life in prison.

Daniel James Longorio, who represented himself during trial, was sentenced as a three-striker.

San Mateo County prosecutors do not seek a third strike in all cases but District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said his conduct warranted the severity.

“Mr. Longorio is the poster boy of why we should have three strikes unless you believe it is wrong in all cases,” Wagstaffe said.

A jury convicted Longorio Aug. 5 of two counts of residential burglary, two counts of home invasion robbery, two counts of false imprisonment and being a felon in possession of a firearm. The jury, which deliberated two hours, also found true the use of a firearm, that Longorio was a parolee who committed a felony and that the crimes were serious or violent felonies.

Longorio, 39, of San Francisco, robbed the Daly City home June 24, 2009 and among other items took the stamp collection belonging to a deceased husband. While the crime went largely unpublicized, Longorio’s attempt to escape prosecution did not. On Aug. 11 of that year, Longorio was returning to the Maguire Correctional Facility in Redwood City from the South San Francisco courthouse where he had a preliminary hearing for the robbery case. Longorio was seated inside a Sheriff’s Office transportation van, facing the back doors. There is no handle inside the vehicle but Longorio managed to undo the back panel and flip the door’s locking mechanism. After the van pulled into the jail’s transportation bay, Longorio — still shackled and wearing a red jail jumpsuit identifying him as a high-risk prisoner — jumped from the vehicle and ran. Officers nabbed him minutes later approximately 1,000 feet away from the jail on Bradford Avenue in the area of Brewster Avenue and Marshall Street.

Deputies later discovered an industrial-like razor blade in the van’s back seat and believe Longorio may have used it as a screwdriver to undo the back panel.

Longorio opted to serve as his own attorney although a lawyer from the private defender panel was appointed on a stand-by basis. Prior to opening statements, Longorio asked that his entire statement to police be admitted even though it included references to his time served at Pelican Bay and Corcoran prisons. The jury also heard three taped confessions to police in which he referenced other uncharged crimes like burglary and drug manufacturing.

Longorio testified on his own behalf, telling jurors he was not the robber and at the most guilty of possessing stolen property. He claimed police told him exactly what to say during the taped confession.

On the stand Longorio said he was not an “abuser of drugs but a connoisseur of drugs” who used cocaine instead of methamphetamine, according to prosecutors.

He also said that following the escape he offered to be a security expert for the Sheriff’s Office, Wagstaffe said.

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