Portola Valley: Man pleads no contest to assault, felony burglary

A Palo Alto man accused of assaulting a 13-year-old Portola Valley boy with a baseball bat and crashing his SUV into a ravine following a police chase pleaded no contest Dec. 17 to charges of felony assault and felony auto burglary.

Alexander Stefan Dombovic, 22, agreed to a plea deal with a maximum of two years in state prison, prosecutors said. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 26, and is out of custody on $50,000 bail.

Mr. Dombovic was arrested April 21 after he lost control of his vehicle during a police chase and crashed down an an embankment in the 900 block of Westridge Drivein Portola Valley, according to San Mateo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Karen Guidotti and the Sheriff’s Office.

“He was ordered out of the car and he yelled to the officers in a Russian accent, ‘This has nothing to do with Boston,'” Ms. Guidotti said. Mr. Dombovic is a Chechen who lives in Palo Alto, she said.

The officers found about 129 pieces of mail from 18 local addresses in the car, she said. A Sheriff’s Office report adds that Mr. Dombovic “forcibly entered” three mailboxes on Alamos Lane and two on Westridge Drive, both entries made with a baseball bat.

The string of incidents began at 10 p.m. Sunday, April 21. A 13-year-old Portola Valley boy reading in his bedroom 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. The man allegedly yelled at the boy and charged at him with an aluminum baseball bat, hitting him in the shoulder, Ms. Guidotti said. The man then fled in a gold Toyota SUV, deputies said.

Deputies were already in the area to respond to a nearby car burglary. They saw the SUV driving on the wrong side of the road with the car lights off. The deputies swerved to avoid him and a car chase ensued, with the pursued car accelerating to 60 miles per hour, Ms. Guidotti said.