Teen Faces Charge in Crime Spree

A Camarillo teenager became the youngest person in Ventura County charged under the state’s “three-strikes” law when prosecutors filed a felony robbery count Tuesday against Jose Duarte for his alleged role in a crime spree last month that ended in the death of a Moorpark man.

Duarte, 17, pleaded not guilty to the charge that could send him to prison for life if convicted of a robbery earlier that evening and a judge or jury agrees that the youth has two felony convictions.

A judge last week ruled that Duarte would be tried as an adult.

Prosecutor Richard E. Holmes alleges that Duarte was convicted of robbery and attempted robbery in Juvenile Court last year. Holmes declined to talk further on the previous convictions. Duarte’s lawyer, William C. Maxwell, declined comment on either case.

The stocky Duarte stood silently in court with his hands behind his back as Municipal Court Judge Thomas Hutchins increased bail from $55,000 to $250,000 with the filing of the three-strikes charge. Duarte’s mother, Alicia Garcia, sat in the front row of the courtroom crying as the youngest of her two sons, shackled at the ankles and wearing the white T-shirt and blue sweat pants of a Juvenile Hall inmate, was returned to jail after the brief hearing.

“He’s very sad right now. He feels bad about what happened,” Garcia said later. “We all feel bad about it.”

Prosecutors have accused Duarte of participating in a 30-minute crime spree with three others, whom they describe as “hard-core gang members.” They said the spree began with an attempt to steal food from a Taco Bell in Camarillo and culminated with the random slaying of a 25-year-old motorist who had stopped at a red light in Moorpark.

In between, investigators allege that the youths fired into the home of a rival gang member and then robbed a man outside a Somis market. Investigators contend the four were drinking heavily during the slaying episode, which ended with a short, high-speed pursuit in Moorpark. Duarte is charged with the Somis robbery but not the killing of the motorist.

Miguel Castro, 20, is charged with the slaying of Jesus Zamudo Manjarrez, the motorist, and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.

Investigators allege that Castro, who has pleaded not guilty to the charge, mistakenly believed Manjarrez was a rival gang member. Manjarrez had just finished work at a nearby movie theater and was heading home after stopping at a Taco Bell for food when he was slain.

Arturo Contreras, 18, is charged with firing a gun into an occupied dwelling and with robbery, charges to which he has pleaded not guilty.

Another 17-year-old boy is also charged in the Somis robbery. Prosecutors will seek to try the unidentified teenager as an adult, Holmes said. A hearing on his case is scheduled for Jan. 16 in Juvenile Court.