Man Convicted of Killing Deputy Gets 14 Years

A 31-year-old man who shot and killed his ex-wife’s boyfriend and then convinced jurors the shooting was the unintended result of a suicide plan was sentenced Friday to 14 years in prison.

At the end of an emotionally taxing 2 1/2-hour hearing, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Shari Kreisler Silver imposed the maximum possible sentence on Baudilio Perez, whom she described as a violent man still fixated on his former wife.

“I believe he is absolutely a danger to society, specifically to anyone who gets involved with Angela Perez,” Silver said.

The relatives of the victim, John Thompson, said they were grateful to Silver, but said they have no doubt that the killing was intentional and are upset that Perez will spend less than a lifetime in prison, because of what they consider a failure by police and prosecutors to prove his guilt.

“It’s been tough not only to deal with his death but also this miscarriage of justice,” said Tom Thompson, the victim’s brother. “I think the court did its job. The rest of the justice system didn’t do its job, but it’s too late for that.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jacqueline Lacey said the verdict was the product of jurors voting with their emotions rather than weighing the evidence.

Baudilio Perez fatally shot John Thompson, 33, a sheriff’s deputy, in Thompson’s Santa Clarita home in front of the woman they both loved, Angela Perez.

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Prosecutors said Thompson went to the home intending to kill Thompson, and charged him with first degree murder. They alleged that Thompson had made plans to pick up his gun that day in March 1997 when he parked far from the house, came in unannounced through the garage, and fatally shot Thompson at close range.

The defense focused on the relationship between the defendant and his former wife. Henry Salcido, Perez’s lawyer, used evidence of letters and phone calls that he said proved she was leading his client on after their breakup. He said Perez was hoping for a reconciliation, but when his hopes were dashed, he turned suicidal.

Perez testified that he had intended to have his former wife watch him kill himself and did not expect Thompson to be present. He said he and the victim struggled over the gun, which Perez said accidentally fired four times, killing Thompson and slicing into Perez’s hand, according to Salcido.

The jurors believed Perez. They acquitted him of murder and convicted him instead of involuntary manslaughter with the use of a gun.

Dozens of friends and relatives of both the victim and the defendant wrote to the judge pleading their cases for either leniency or severity. During Friday’s hearing, several of Thompson’s relatives pleaded with the judge for the maximum sentence and played an edited video of the victim’s funeral.

Perez’s family and friends described him as a good, moral man who needed a break. They were unhappy with Friday’s prison sentence. One family friend cried as she left the courtroom after the sentence was imposed.

“If you ask me, he shouldn’t have been here [on trial] at all,” said Mario Perez, the defendant’s brother.

But according to Salcido, his client recognized his situation had improved considerably since the beginning of the trial, when Perez faced first-degree murder charges, which carry a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.

“Certainly he would have hoped for better,” Salcido said. But he said his client thanked him privately after the hearing. “It could have been far worse. A lot of people around him are getting life sentences and the death penalty.”