Blog Posts in 2013

• Gang Members Get 13 Years For Machete Attack

  Merced Sun Star || 20-Dec-2013

  MERCED - Two Merced gang members received 13-year prison sentences each on Friday for their roles in attacking a teenager with a machete earlier this year. Isaac Sanchez Jr., 18, and Uriel Soto, 20, cut a package deal with the Merced County District Attorney’s Office to avoid longer prison terms, officials in the case said. Sanchez pleaded no contest to an assault charge and admitted a gang ...
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• Closing arguments in case of murdered mother

  Merced Sun Star || 17-Jun-2013

  MERCED – The trial of a couple accused of killing a Planada woman and kidnapping her baby was in its final stage Thursday, with prosecutors calling the female defendant “the brain” and her boyfriend “the muscle” in the murder-kidnap plot. Maria Ceja Robles and Jose Augustine Velarde are accused of killing Ana Lila Diaz DeCeja on Dec. 2, 2010, and kidnapping her ...
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• Claims of abuse, trauma: Planada woman takes stand in her murder, kidnap trial

  Merced Sun Star || 4-Jun-2013

  MERCED – Faking a pregnancy using pillows and being drugged against her will. Those were just two of the many claims made by Maria Teresa Ceja Robles, the Planada woman accused of murder and kidnapping, during her testimony in court Friday. Ceja Robles and defendant Jose Augustine Velarde are accused of killing Ana Lila Diaz DeCeja on Dec. 2, 2010, and kidnapping her 2-month-old son, Anthony ...
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• Mental Competency of Accused Child Abuser in Question

  Modesto Bee || 6-May-2013

  MODESTO - The Stanislaus County Superior Court is trying to determine whether a 33-year-old Turlock man is mentally fit to face criminal charges of sexually abusing a teenage girl. Robert Daniel Gomes is accused of continuous sexual abuse of a child, sodomy, oral copulation with a person younger than 14 and unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor more than three years younger. The alleged victim, ...
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• Planada murder trial: Female defendant was a willing participant in plot to kill, says prosecutor

  Merced Sun Star || 4-May-2013

  MERCED - Prosecutors in the trial of a couple accused of killing a Planada woman and kidnapping her baby focused on the female defendant Friday, saying she was a willing participant in the plot. Those remarks came during the second day of opening statements in the trial of Maria Teresa Ceja Robles, 34, and Jose Augustine Velarde, 38, who are both charged with murder in the Dec. 2, 2010, death of ...
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