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A 22-year-old Palo Alto man was sentenced to one year in San Mateo County jail on Friday, May 9, after having pleaded no contest to felony charges of auto burglary and assault of a 13-year-old Portola Valley boy with a baseball bat in April 2013.
Alexander Stefan Dombovic, who has been and remains out of custody on $50,000 bail, is to report to jail on June 21 to begin serving his sentence, according to a report by Bay City News Service. He was also ordered to pay $3,000 in restitution and serve three years of probation.
Mr. Dombovic agreed in December 2013 to a plea bargain in which he would serve a maximum of two years in state prison, prosecutors said.
The string of incidents that led to Mr Dombovic’s arrest began at around 10 p.m. on a Sunday night, April 21, 2013, according to accounts by prosecutors and Sheriff’s Office deputies.
The Portola Valley boy had been reading in his bedroom when he heard a car come down the driveway of his home and park near his room. He went out to see what was going on and said he saw a man rummaging through his father’s vehicle.
The boy asked the man what he was doing, and the man allegedly yelled at him and charged at him with an aluminum baseball bat, hitting him in the shoulder. The man then fled in a gold Toyota SUV.
Deputies were in the area to respond to a nearby car burglary and saw an SUV driving on the wrong side of the road with its lights off. The deputies swerved to avoid the vehicle and a chase ensued, with the pursued vehicle accelerating to 60 miles per hour.
Mr. Dombovic was arrested after he lost control of his vehicle in the 900 block of Westridge Drive and plunged down an embankment.
Mr. Dombovic, who is of Chechen ethnicity, was ordered out of his vehicle, whereupon he yelled to the deputies in a Russian accent, “This has nothing to do with Boston,” prosecutors said. The Boston Marathon bombing had occurred six days earlier.
About 129 pieces of mail from 18 local addresses were found in the vehicle. Deputies reported that Mr. Dombovic used a baseball bat to “forcibly enter” three mailboxes on Alamos Lane and two on Westridge Drive.
Bay City News Service contributed to this report.
He should be locked up now! Why wait!
only a year?
Why does he get to wait 6 weeks? Did he give the 13 year old kid any time before swinging a baseball bat at him? And why only a year? Is all this statutory, or is it just another liberal judge feeling sorry for the criminal?
This is a complete OUTRAGE!!! Only one year in county jail for hammering a young kid with a baseball bat, and stealing mail?!? County jail is a picnic!!! That’s no punishment!!! What happened to the December 2013 plea bargain this creep agreed to wherein he would serve a MAXIMUM OF TWO YEARS IN STATE PRISON?!? How did that get reduced to one year in county jail?!?
Our American criminal justice system is a total farce!!! No wonder there are so many crimes here in the SF Bay Area. The criminals know they will get little to no prison time for their criminal behavior. Everyone send an email to DA Steve Wagstaffe and let him know of your displeasure over this light sentence, which is a joke!!! Wagstaffe’s email address is: swagstaffe@smcgov.org
Agreed, harsher punishment needed here! Thanks for the email address, I wrote too! Baseball bat, 129 pieces of mail and looking for more to take from a parked car in driveway. Good job catching him police, now lets do harsher punishment, why plea bargain? That’s what I would like to know?