Oakland man sentenced to 5 years in Sonoma robbery

An Oakland man who pleaded no contest to a 2017 robbery of a 96-year-old Sonoma woman was sentenced to five years in jail for the crime.|

Tommy Mitchell of Oakland, 29, was sentenced to five years in state prison following his no-contest plea in May to residential burglary with an enhancement for committing the crime against an elder adult.

The sentencing took place on Sept. 12, in county court by Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Dana Simonds. Of his two co-defendants in the July, 2017 crime, one of them – Tarzan Miller of Richmond, 34 – also pled no contest but was given a lighter sentence of a year in jail and probation.

The other defendant, Mitchell’s uncle Richard Mitchell, 48, from the Sacramento area, did not appear for his hearing and there is a bench warrant out for his arrest.

On July 10, 2017 Mitchell and the two co-defendants broke into the home of a 96-year-old Jane Doe along Highway 12 in Sonoma. While Mitchell distracted the elderly woman in her backyard, where he had led her under the guise of discussing landscaping, the other men entered the home and carried out her safe and other belongings.

Two female witnesses, both employees of Mary’s Pizza Shack, observed the burglary from across the street and called law enforcement. They were able to provide descriptions of the suspects and the vehicle they were driving, a blue Ford Focus.

Within minutes, Sonoma County Sheriff’s Deputies pulled over the vehicle and apprehended the three men with the victim’s property inside their car. In the vehicle, the deputies found a small safe and a pillow case loaded with jewelry.

Deputies returned to the victim’s home and contacted the 96-year-old woman, who didn’t realize she had been burglarized.

At the sentencing hearing the victim’s daughter urged the court to sentence Mitchell to state prison, describing how this crime took away her mother’s sense of security inside a home she had lived in for 79 years.

The defendant admitted a prior “strike” offense based on a 2016 conviction where he committed a prior residential burglary under similar circumstances, burglarizing the home of an 89-year-old woman in Gardena, California. Mitchell was on probation for the Gardena burglary when he committed the current offense.

These burglaries follow a scheme perpetrated in other parts of California, when a group of burglars will target elderly victims living alone, stealing their property while one perpetrator distracts the victim.

District Attorney Jill Ravitch stated, “To deliberately target the elderly for financial gain, particularly in their homes, is really unconscionable. Thanks to the good Samaritans, this thief was apprehended and will serve a term in state prison.”

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