Life in prison \u2013 plus five years \u2013 was handed down Monday to a Texas man who kidnapped a college student during a carjacking in Pacific Beach.
\nSkyler Jace Battreall, 20, will likely have to serve the five-year sentence first and then will be only eligible for parole after he serves seven years of the life term.
\nSan Diego Superior Court Judge Sharon Majors-Lewis ordered Battreall to pay $5,051 in restitution to Brett Charbonnel, 22, whose car was totaled after Battreall crashed it on Emerald Street on Oct. 14, 2018.
\nCharbonnel was parked on Garnet Avenue near Cass Street around 9 p.m. when Battreall asked for a ride. Charbonnel let him inside his Hyundai Elantra, but Battreall then became demanding and pulled an airsoft pellet gun.
\nBattreall struck the Grossmont College student in the mouth with the gun replica, knocking out two teeth, and pushed him out of the car. Charbonnel thought it was a real firearm.
\nA jury convicted Battreall of kidnapping during a carjacking and inflicting great bodily injury on Sept. 3 after only two hours of deliberations. They also convicted him of assault with a deadly weapon.
\n“He\u2019s not going to do life,” said Deputy District Attorney James Koerber. “He\u2019s going to have to convince a parole board he\u2019s not going to commit a crime.”
\nThe state legislature has determined that inmates with a life sentence must serve a full seven years before they can be considered eligible for parole. A life without parole sentence means someone can never be released.
\n“Does the crime fit the time?” asked Battreall\u2019s attorney, Christopher Montoya. “He does deserve a shot at parole.”
\nMontoya said the charge should not carry a life sentence and that Battreall will likely be “victimized in prison.”
\n“He\u2019s going to come out a different person and not in a good way,” said Montoya.
\nMontoya had argued to jurors to acquit Battreall because he was under the influence of drugs at the time. “I am truly sorry. There\u2019s not a day I don\u2019t think about it,” said Battreall to the judge.
\n“Whatever (the sentence) is, I am determined to change myself for the better\u2026make myself a better person,” said Battreall.
\nThe judge gave him credit for serving 460 days in jail and fined him $440.
\nBattreall testified at trial that he did not have a plan and when he pulled the gun replica out, he also told the student he was wanted for murder, which was not true.
\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.
\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.”
\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 and police officers found Battreall hiding under a tarp in someone\u2019s back yard.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Life in prison \u2013 plus five years \u2013 was handed down Monday to a Texas man who kidnapped a college student during a carjacking in Pacific Beach. Skyler Jace Battreall, 20, will likely have to serve the five-year sentence first and then will be only eligible for parole after he serves seven years of the […]<\/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":"Carjacker in Pacific Beach gets life sentence","_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-264856","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\/264856","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=264856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264856\/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=264856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}