People v. Jimenez CA4/2

BACKGROUND

On the night of September 30 to October 1, 2018, several individuals broke into

Garcia’s Wood Work, a company that makes wooden pallets in Fontana, California. The

intrusion awakened an employee who lived at the work site, and the intruders bound,

gagged, beat, and threatened to kill him. He was later treated for head injuries and a

broken finger. The intruders also took his wallet and cell phone and the keys to his

pickup truck.

After the intruders left, the employee freed himself, walked to a neighboring

property, and had the neighbor call the owner of Garcia’s Wood Work. The employee

then returned to the pallet yard. N.G., the manager of Garcia’s Wood Work, arrived

shortly thereafter.

N.G. found that the gate to the pallet yard had been rammed open, and two trucks,

each loaded with 704 pallets, were missing. Each pallet was worth six to eight dollars, so

the value of the cargo on the two trucks was over $8,000.

N.G. sent several family members to other local pallet yards to attempt to find the

missing trucks and pallets. In particular, N.G. called his brother-in-law at about 2:10 a.m.

and sent him to a pallet yard in Riverside, California, operated by…