An El Cajon man was sentenced on July 8, 2019 to 12 years in prison for fatally beating his 72-year-old housemate in 2015.
Michael Patrick O’Donnell, 60, was ordered to pay $11,897.14 in restitution to the daughter of the victim. Richard Winslow Hobbs died in thehospital on Oct. 13, 2015.
Hobbs owned the home in the 1000 block of Pine Drive in El Cajon and O’Donnell and a woman were renting from him. The victim’s daughter submitted a victim’s survivor written impact statement, said Deputy District Attorney Daniel Shim.
O’Donnell pleaded guilty June 7 to voluntary manslaughter following a mistrial in September 2018 when a jury deadlocked 9-3 in favor of conviction for murder. The murder charge was later dropped.
El Cajon Superior Court Judge Lantz Lewis imposed 11 years for manslaughter plus one year for the use of a baseball bat in a homicide. O’Donnell received credit for 1,561 days spent in jail since his arrest.
Trial set for vehicular manslaughter case
A Sept. 24 trial date was set for Rontarieo Deshaun Brown, 37, after he was ordered to stand trial for vehicular manslaughter in the death of his girlfriend, Bernadette Castillo, 46, in Jamul.
Castillo was critically injured on state Route 94 on July 27, 2018 after she left Brown’s car and was struck at 3:31 a.m. near Steele Canyon Road. An ambulance took Castillo to a hospital where she died.
An El Cajon Superior Court judge dismissed a charge of assault with a deadly weapon at the end of the preliminary hearing on July 2, said Deputy District Attorney Will Watkins.
Witnesses said the woman got out of a sports utility vehicle that had stopped. The driver attempted to follow her with the car, but later backed up, striking the woman. The driver got out of the car and tried to revive her before leaving.
Brown, of Lemon Grove, pleaded not guilty. He remains in jail on $770,000 bail.
Motel violence case to go to trial
Scotty Leon Richardson, 62, was given an Aug. 19 trial date on July 3 after being arraigned on attempted murder of an El Cajon motel clerk and domestic violence of Richardson’s wife.
Richardson pleaded not guilty to all charges including assault with a deadly weapon upon Nate Creekmore who kicked him out of the motel on Jan. 10 after the incident with his wife, Joan Richardson.
Richardson returned and rammed his car into the motel lobby at the Budget Inn Motel on East Main Street, narrowly missing Creekmore. Richardson is also charged with two counts of DUI in the incident.
El Cajon Superior Court Judge Herbert Exarhos ordered Richardson to stand trial June 19 in the preliminary hearing. Scotty Richardson remains in the George Bailey Detention Facility on $525,000 bail.
Arsonist sentenced
A Boulevard arsonist who had jumped bail has been sentenced to 14 years in state prison.
Anthony Ramon Saldana, 31, had been a fugitive from March 16, 2018 until March 29 when he was arrested by immigration and customs agents. He had been free on $100,000 bond when he failed to show up in court.
Saldana pleaded guilty to arson and also admitted going to prison twice before on other offenses, which added time to his sentence, said Deputy District Attorney Will LaFond.
Saldana was screaming in the middle of the night on June 14, 2017 on Crestwood Road in Boulevard. A property owner shot him in the right arm after Saldana broke into some cars and later set fire to a mobile home.
Sheriff’s deputies then arrested him. The mobile home was a total loss.
Saldana was also charged with trespassing in another incident in El Cajon in which he tried to break into a house while looking for a woman. That charge was later dropped.
El Cajon Superior Court records show Saldana has previously been convicted of burglary, felony assault and two drug offenses.
