In response to changes in prosecutorial policies and court rules that eliminated bail, Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station Capt. Justin Diez said local deputies will continue to arrest those who break the law and try to hold them accountable.
That might explain in part why a man with multiple previous run-ins with law enforcement was being held in lieu of $1.37 million bail prior to his first court date.
A 41-year-old Santa Clarita transient named Nicholas Escarcega was arrested around 9 a.m. Sunday after a resident reported someone was breaking into cars near McBean Parkway and Orchard Village Road, according to Deputy Robert Jensen of the SCV Sheriff’s Station.
The report involved “a witness observing the suspect breaking the driver’s side window of a victim’s vehicle with his hand to make physical entry,” Jensen said in a phone interview Monday.
Jensen said deputies responded to the call and found him using the witness’s description of the suspect’s clothing and appearance.
After deputies investigated the scene, they reported the suspect also damaged multiple windows with rocks, causing more than $1,000 in damage to residents’ vehicles.
Deputies also reported that he had an active restraining order against him that forbade him from being where he was arrested.
In addition to the alleged violation of the restraining order and suspicion of burglary, Escarcega also was charged with trying to bring drugs into jail, after a small white bindle of suspected methamphetamine was found on his person as he was being booked at the SCV Sheriff’s Station jail, according to station officials.
Escarcega previously had a pair of charges, assault and elder abuse, dismissed June 21 after L.A. County Superior Court found there had been a lack of speedy trial, according to court records. Three days later he was sentenced to 364 days in jail with credit for six months served and six months of good behavior after a no-contest plea to a misdemeanor charge of a hit-and-run causing injury.
LASD custody records available online indicated Escarcega was still in jail as of Tuesday afternoon.
The L.A. County District Attorney’s Office released the complaint prosecutors filed against Escarcega, who faced a preliminary arraignment on the charges Tuesday.
Escarcega is facing one count of second-degree vehicle burglary and a second count of felony vandalism. His criminal complaint notes six previous felony convictions from 2002 to 2013 as an additional allegation.
His plea was not immediately available, but court records indicated his bail was changed to $200,000 and he’s still in custody as of Tuesday evening, according to LASD custody records available online.
