http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/154153



Published: 11.03.2006

Carjack of mom, girl yields 5 years in prison
By Kim Smith
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
A Tucson man who carjacked a woman and her 7-year-old daughter in February was sentenced last week to five years in prison.
According to court documents, Jose Baltazar Lopez, 20, pointed a semiautomatic handgun at the woman after she and her daughter pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store near East Golf Links and South Craycroft roads around 8 a.m. on Feb. 9.
The woman got out of her 2004 Dodge Ram pickup and rescued her daughter before Lopez sped out of the parking lot, hitting another vehicle in the process.
Thirty minutes later, police tracked down the truck after Lopez hit a wall and then drove to a friend's house in the 700 block of West Lightstar Circle.
Lopez tried to escape from the house and was hit with a wooden-dowel projectile, but he eventually surrendered to a SWAT team.
Lopez, who was arrested under the name of Jose Vahazar Lopez, pleaded guilty to armed robbery and was sentenced on Oct. 25 by Judge Howard Fell in Pima County Superior Court.
The illegal immigrant told a pre-sentence report writer that he had a sketchy memory of the incident, but he did remember consuming a lot of beer and taking "rochas" — better known as Rohypnol, the "date-rape drug" — that morning.
The men he was with urged him to steal a car so they could drive back to Mexico, Lopez said. They said they'd done it before and made fun of him when he initially refused.
Lopez said he didn't know the girl was in the truck when he decided to steal the vehicle.
"I'm very sorry for what I did. I know that I would not have done this terrible thing if I had not been drunk from the beer and high from the rochas. I know that this is not an excuse, because nothing can excuse what I did," Lopez told the pre-sentence report writer. "I am very sorry for what I did to this lady and her daughter. I can only imagine how scared they must have been."
At the same time, Lopez asked for leniency.
Lopez said that eventually he would be deported and unable to see his family, which came to the United States in 1991 and remain here. According to the pre-sentence report writer, however, Lopez has a brother in Mexico.
● Contact reporter Kim Smith at 573-4241 or kimsmith@azstarnet.com.


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