Boy Gets 7 Years in Attempted Robbery Case

A 16-year-old boy convicted of attempted robbery in a crime that led to the shooting death of a Port Hueneme landlord last year was sentenced to seven years in juvenile detention on Friday.

Gilbert Martinez displayed little emotion as Superior Court Judge Charles R. McGrath handed down the sentence.

Martinez’s attorney, James M. Farley, proclaimed a victory for his client. Martinez would have faced life in prison without parole if he had been convicted of the most serious charges. Instead, he will be free in about 2 1/2 years with time off for good behavior and credit for a year already served, Farley said.

Prosecutors, who say Martinez was the triggerman in the Dec. 1, 1992, attack, had asked the judge Friday to lock him up for the maximum eight years. But McGrath sentenced the teen-ager to three years for the attempted robbery and another four years for using a firearm during the commission of the attempted robbery.

McGrath said he also believed Martinez was the triggerman in the assault on 55-year-old Richard Schell, a Santa Barbara man who was killed when four males robbed him of rent money he had collected.

Prosecutors had tried to win a conviction of first-degree murder against Martinez. But a Ventura County jury found him not guilty of squeezing the trigger and instead opted only for the attempted robbery conviction.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Donald C. Glynn, who tried Martinez and three co-defendants, said after the sentencing: “The judge gave him just about all he could.”

Meanwhile, sentencing for the man convicted of murder for masterminding the Schell robbery plot--George Pena--was postponed to Jan. 14.

A third defendant, Jose Luis Arreguin, 20, was convicted of first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. A fourth defendant, 20-year-old David Soto, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and has not been sentenced.