LANCASTER : Maximum Sentence Given in Slaying
A reputed Lancaster drug dealer with several prior criminal convictions was sentenced Tuesday to 26 years to life in state prison--the maximum legally permitted--for second-degree murder in the slaying of a customer in February over a $3 rock cocaine debt.
Lancaster Superior Court Judge Thomas Stoever gave Phillip G. Allison, 35, the standard 15-year-to-life term for the murder conviction, and then added five years for using a gun, five years for Allison’s 1984 assault conviction, and an extra year because Allison had previously been in prison.
A jury convicted Allison last month of fatally shooting Jose Sanchez, 23, in an alley behind Cedar Avenue in Lancaster on Feb. 29. A second suspect in the shooting has not been apprehended. Allison, who has a long history of other arrests, filed a motion to appeal Tuesday’s sentence.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
