By Sean Emery
The Orange County Register
LOS ANGELES — With dozens of uniformed police officers filling a standing-room-only courtroom, an Orange County judge on Thursday backed off from an offer she made to a Los Angeles felon accused of ripping a Brea police officer’s gun from his holster.
The offer from Orange County Superior Court Judge Gassia Apkarian likely would have led to a 16-month sentence for Gilbert Antonio Villalba, 32, who previously indicated he’d take it.
Police and prosecutors immediately criticized the proposed deal, calling it far too lenient.
The offer was withdrawn. Now, if Villalba is convicted, he faces six years in prison.
Brea Police Officer Steven Wulff told the judge that he pulled Villalba over on Feb. 2 after recognizing him from a previous arrest and knowing he had an outstanding warrant. Villalba pulled into a Home Depot parking lot and immediately ran from his vehicle, the officer said.
The officer chased Villalba through the parking lot, as they doubled back toward where Villalba’s vehicle and the officer’s patrol car were parked. Wulff said he grabbed Villalba by his vest to prevent him from getting back in his car, and the two wrestled on the ground, as Villalba’s girlfriend stood nearby.
The officer said Villalba repeatedly grabbed for his gun, eventually ripping his holster from its base plate and leaving it dangling upside down. Villalba called for his girlfriend to grab the gun, the officer said, but she apparently ignored his request.
According to prosecutors, Villalba at one point removed the officer’s taser from its holster, though it doesn’t appear he used it on Wulff. The officer told the judge that he was fighting Villalba with all his strength, and was ultimately aided by a retired officer who saw the struggle and helped detain Villalba.
“I believe he intended to take my firearm and use it to kill me,” Wulff told the judge.
“During the struggle, my only thought was ‘I need to make it home,’” the officer added.
Brea Police Chief Adam Hawley noted Villalba’s criminal history – which included a prior strike conviction under California’s three-strikes law for second-degree robbery, as well as a felony conviction for manufacturing an improvised gun – and described him as a “clear danger to society.”
“I’m here to say enough is enough,” Hawley told the judge. “This was no simple assault against a police officer … instead of surrendering, the defendant violently attacked Officer Wulff.”
Spitzer, who made an official appearance, told the judge that Villalba has “already proven he is a very, very bad and dangerous person.”
Sandor Carrasco, Villalba’s attorney, urged the judge to proceed with the court offer, noting that Villalba was willing to acknowledge wrongdoing at an early stage of the court process.
Several times during the hearing, Carrasco warned Villalba against saying anything in response to the comments by police or prosecutors. Villalba attended the hearing remotely, appearing on a video screen from jail.
If convicted of the current charges, he faces up to six years and eight months in prison.
Citing unspecified factors she said were raised by prosecutors in an amended complaint filed Thursday, the judge withdrew the court offer.
Carrasco declined the judge’s new offer of an open plea, which would have required Villalba to admit to the charges with no guarantee of what sentence he would receive.
Spitzer has vocally opposed several past court offers, which originate with judges as opposed to plea deals offered by prosecutors.
In 2019, he publicly opposed a court offer from another judge that led to a 5-year sentence for Tyson Theodore Mayfield, who angrily confronted, threatened and yelled racial slurs at a pregnant African-American woman at a Fullerton bus stop. An appeals court later overturned the short sentence, in the process echoing concerns raised by Spitzer that Mayfield should have received a stiffer penalty because of his violent past.
Last year, prosecutors also objected to a court offer accepted by Ralph Gracie, a former professional mixed-martial artist who got six months in jail for attacking a jujitsu world champion on the sidelines of an Anaheim competition. Spitzer argued that Gracie’s “unprovoked attack was carried out by a highly trained fighter capable of inflicting maximum pain and damage.”
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