On March 28, 2011, a Lompoc High School student was attacked in one of the school bathrooms before leaving the campus.
One year later, three teens connected to that attack have been sentenced to state prison. Saul Rivera, 17, was sentenced to seven years in prison and must serve 85 percent of the sentence before he’s eligible for parole. Marco Domiguez, 17, and Christian Ortiz, 18, were both sentenced to four years in prison and must serve at least half their of terms before they are eligible for parole. They were all tried as adults.
According to Santa Barbara County Deputy District Attorney Brandon Jebens, there was another student accompanying Rivera, Dominguez, and Ortiz in the bathroom that day.
That student, whose name can’t be released because he was a minor at the time the crime was committed, was tried as a juvenile. Jebens said juvenile proceedings aren’t open to the public.
The victim was released from Lompoc
Valley Hospital after being treated for injuries from being beaten and stabbed. Three suspects were arrested on the day of the stabbing; the fourth was caught and arrested a couple of days later.
All of the sentenced students have been expelled from Lompoc High School.
Jebens said that Rivera, Dominguez, and Ortiz were scheduled for trial in April, but instead entered no-contest pleas on March 1 and that all three confessed to the attack’s connection with a street gang. No-contest pleas are considered the same as guilty pleas, in terms of sentencing.
This article appears in Apr 5-12, 2012.