Man Sentenced in Travel Agency Thefts
A member of a ring that robbed travel agencies in the San Fernando Valley was sentenced Thursday to a year in county jail and three years’ probation, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
Oswaldo Arevalo, 34, was also ordered by Superior Court Judge Gregg Marcus to pay about $1,800 in restitution to travel agency owner Myong Siemen, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Keri Modder. The Van Nuys man had pleaded no contest to one count of robbery.
Arevalo was arrested after he and three other men held up a Granada Hills travel agency Aug. 14 and took blank airline tickets.
Two suspects--Jose Rafael Figueroa and Mario Guerrero--were fatally shot by members of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Special Investigations Section shortly after the robbery. Police said Figueroa and Guerrero did not comply with orders to surrender.
Investigators believe that the ring was connected to at least 25 travel agency robberies, many of them in the Valley, in which blank airline tickets were taken during daytime holdups.
Arevalo faced a maximum of five years in state prison but the court took into account the fact that he was not one of the men who used a gun, Modder said.
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