Driver Sentenced in Theater Killing

The getaway driver in the 1994 murder of a movie theater security guard was sentenced Friday to 26 years to life in prison, telling a judge he regrets not stopping the killing.

“I’m still very sorry that I didn’t do enough,” Rafael A. Maldonado, 23, told Superior Court Judge Kathleen E. O’Leary. “That no matter what I did, in that moment in time, it wasn’t good enough.”

Maldonado, a Santa Ana office worker, was convicted in November of first-degree murder for his role in dropping off the drunken shooter, Jerry Lee Alonzo, and then picking him up after the Feb. 19, 1994, cinema slaying.

Alonzo has been convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The victim, Dagoberto R. Carrero, 23, was working his last shift as a security guard at the Century City Centre Theatres in Orange when he was shot in the face and back.

A former Marine and Gulf War veteran, Carrero had made plans to travel to Texas the next day for Air National Guard training.

His wife said Friday that the murder devastated family life for her and her 2-year-old daughter.

“I was an orphan myself,” Nicole Carrero told the judge. “My husband and I wanted a normal, full life for our daughter, but now she will never have it.”

Police and prosecutors said Alonzo killed Carrero in anger over a previous encounter.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Lewis R. Rosenblum contended during trial that Maldonado knew Alonzo planned to “hit up” the guard and should have called the police or the theater. Alonzo paged Maldonado after the shooting for a ride, using the code “187,” which is also the number of the section in the California Penal Code dealing with homicide, according to court records.

Maldonado’s attorney contended during the trial that his client had sought to dissuade Alonzo from harming the guard, and was being punished for trying to intercede.

A passenger in the car also has been convicted of first-degree murder and awaits sentencing.