After only two hours of deliberations, a jury on Sept. 3 convicted a Texas man of kidnapping a college student during a carjacking in Pacific Beach.
\nSkyler Jace Battreall, 20, showed little reaction to the verdicts, which include assault with a deadly weapon when he struck Brett Charbonnel, 22, twice in the face with a replica handgun.
\nSan Diego Superior Court Judge Sharon Majors-Lewis set sentencing for Oct. 24. Battreall remains in jail without bail.
\nDeputy District Attorney James Koerber said Battreall faces life in prison on the kidnap conviction. He could get several more years on the assault conviction.
\nBattreall\u2019s attorney, Christopher Montoya, said afterwards it was possible that Battreall could be placed on probation. Montoya had asked jurors to acquit Battreall on the kidnap charge on the basis that he was under the influence of drugs at the time.
\nThe verdicts were relatively quick by the nine-man, three-woman jury as Koerber finished his rebuttal closing argument Tuesday morning.
\n“I was under the influence,” said Battreall to jurors when he testified Aug. 29. “I couldn\u2019t think clearly. Reason was gone.”
\nBattreall admitted he approached Charbonnel who was parked on Garnet Avenue near Cass Street at 9 p.m. on Oct. 14, 2018. He asked Charbonnel, a student at Grossmont College, for a ride, saying his motorcycle was stolen.
\nBattreall got into the Hyundai Elantra and asked to be taken to the McDonald\u2019s to meet his girlfriend, but he didn\u2019t know that was only a few blocks away. He told Charbonnel to go farther, and directed him into a residential area of Pacific Beach.
\nBattreall admitted he pulled the air soft pellet gun and declared he was wanted for murder in Washington, but that he was not guilty of that charge. He acknowledged that was a made up story.
\n“I didn\u2019t really have a plan for anything,” said Battrreall. “I was on my last dollars. I was starting to panic. That\u2019s why I said it.”
\nHe acknowledged taking cocaine and Ecstasy pills during and after his bus trip from Corsicara, Texas, and he had only arrived in San Diego that day.
\nBattreall acknowledged hitting the student with the gun replica, although Charbonnel did not know it was not a real gun. He lost a tooth, and jurors saw photos of a bloodied Charbonnel in a hospital bed.
\n“I feel terrible about what happened to him,” said Battreall, saying he had remorse. “It\u2019s an incident that shouldn\u2019t have taken place.”
\n“I was under the influence of multiple drugs. I couldn\u2019t think clearly,” said Battreall.
\nCharbonnel said he was pushed out of his car after he yelled for help from two bystanders on the sidewalk. Battreall drove off in his car.
\nOfficer Christopher Johnson saw the Hyundai driving without headlights and saw it turn on Fanuel Street. Johnson activated his overhead lights and followed the car to Emerald Street where it crashed into a parked car.
\nThe car was totaled. Police officers found Battreall hiding under a tarp in someone\u2019s back yard. The trial began Aug. 22.
\nAfter the verdicts, the judge held a hearing about Battreall\u2019s prior conviction in 2017 for grand theft in Texas. Majors-Lewis said he was on probation at the time of the carjacking.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After only two hours of deliberations, a jury on Sept. 3 convicted a Texas man of kidnapping a college student during a carjacking in Pacific Beach. Skyler Jace Battreall, 20, showed little reaction to the verdicts, which include assault with a deadly weapon when he struck Brett Charbonnel, 22, twice in the face with a […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":264786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Pacific Beach carjacker found guilty","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-264830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}