Man, 19, Gets Life for Beating Officer to Death
A 19-year-old convicted of beating a probation officer to death with a table leg in order to escape from a juvenile detention center was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Tuesday.
Denying the defendant’s plea for a lighter sentence, a Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Perry called James Amadeo an “intractable” and “sophisticated” criminal for laying in wait and killing 58-year-old Arnold Garcia in 1994.
Despite Amadeo’s claim that he meant merely to knock Garcia unconscious with the steel table leg, he was found guilty of premeditated murder in January, Deputy Dist. Atty. Susan Catalano said. The incident took place at the Dorothy Kirby Correctional Center in Industry.
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