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Convicted robber pleads guilty to carjacking near Fashion Island, sentenced to 22 years

A Newport Beach police vehicle sits at Nottingham Road and Santiago Drive on Oct. 4, 2022.
Alfredo M. Hopgood-Otero barricaded himself from police inside a home in the Dover Shores neighborhood of Newport Beach after carjacking a Jeep Cherokee near Fashion Island on Oct. 4, 2022. On Friday he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 22 years in prison.
(File Photo)
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A 28-year-old convicted robber pleaded guilty Friday and was immediately sentenced to 22 years in prison for a carjacking near Fashion Island and leading police on a chase before barricading himself into a house and ultimately surrendering.

Alfredo M. Hopgood-Otero of Costa Mesa was charged with taking one vehicle, and when it broke down, carjacking a black Jeep Cherokee at gunpoint, police said.

Hopgood-Otero accepted a plea deal from Orange County Superior Court Judge Larry Yellin that prosecutors objected to, according to the defendant’s attorney, Kaveh Newmen. The defendant had credit for 872 days behind bars.

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Officers were dispatched at 3:33 p.m. Oct. 4, 2022, to a report of a carjacking near Fashion Island, police said.

Police picked up the pursuit of the Jeep Cherokee for several miles until Hopgood-Otero pulled over on Santiago Drive in the Dover Shores neighborhood, jumped out and ran away and hid in a residence, where he barricaded himself, police said.

Officers eventually caught up to Hopgood-Otero at 8:50 p.m. in a backyard within a perimeter police had established, and he surrendered without incident, police said.

Hopgood-Otero also resolved a 2021 case in which he was charged with a felony count of assault with a deadly weapon and single misdemeanor counts of brandishing a weapon, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of a controlled substance. He was out on bail in that case when he was accused of the carjackings in Newport Beach.

Hopgood-Otero pleaded guilty in July 2018 to robbery at an automatic teller with a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a deadly weapon as well as misdemeanor counts of being under the influence of drugs, possession of a controlled substance and destroying or concealing evidence.

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