Youth Who Says He Stole for Food Gets 6 Years in Robbery

A 17-year-old high school senior who told a judge that he committed robberies and burglaries to get money for food was sentenced Wednesday to six years in state prison.

Anastacio T. Heredia of Panorama City received the maximum term for residential robbery for his involvement with two others in a Sept. 18 Van Nuys apartment break-in, during which a woman was raped.

Van Nuys Superior Court Judge James A. Albracht told Heredia that he may serve his sentence in the California Youth Authority if officials there agree to take him but that he could be transferred to state prison for committing any infractions in the juvenile system.

Heredia, asking for leniency, told Albracht that he was living “on the streets” with his mother and two brothers when he began committing burglaries at age 12.

“I done those robberies and I done those burglaries because I needed food,” Heredia said after Albracht sentenced him to prison. “I didn’t know that lady was going to get raped.”

But Albracht, saying, “you don’t know everything that’s going to happen when you commit a crime,” told Heredia that he contributed to the rape because he bound the 26-year-old woman with cord and left her lying in a bedroom.

Heredia’s co-defendants, both adults, have pleaded guilty and await sentencing.

According to a probation report, Heredia wants to complete high school and go to college to become a probation officer “because he feels he would better understand people in his situation.”