A 19-year-old Acton man is now facing more than 20 years in prison at sentencing next month for his role in a car-to-car shooting on State Route 14, the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office wrote Wednesday.
Angel Eduardo Ocampo, 19, of Acton, who was initially charged with attempted murder, pleaded no contest to assault with a deadly weapon, according to Tuesday’s minute order in Department N of the San Fernando Courthouse. He also pleaded to several enhancements regarding his crime and the use of a handgun, an allegation that added 10 years to his sentence, according to the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office, in an email Wednesday confirming the plea.
That means Ocampo’s prison exposure at sentencing is 19 years for count 2, the assault charge; and an additional one year and eight months, to run consecutively after the other sentence, for shooting at an occupied motor vehicle, for a “total of 20 years and eight months in state prison,” according to an email Wednesday by Pam Johnson, spokeswoman for the DA’s Office.
The terms of the deal reportedly came from Ocampo’s counsel, a counter-offer made based on the original offer from the DA’s Office, which was seeking a longer sentence, based on the minute order for a May 21 hearing in the case.
“The people indicate they do not want to accept the defendant’s counter-offer until speaking with the victim,” read the May 21 minute order.
Judge Hayden Zacky, who presided over the hearings, also ordered that Ocampo is prohibited from owning firearms for life.
Ocampo is due back in court June 9 for his formal sentencing, which has not been handed down by Zacky.
Ocampo remains in custody at Men’s Central Jail, where he’s been held since his Dec. 5, 2024, arrest by California Highway Patrol officers from the Newhall area.
Newhall-area CHP Officer Carlos Burgos-Lopez said in a phone interview not long after the initial incident Dec. 3, 2024, that the driver of a blue Toyota Tundra reported being shot at while heading south on the state route just south of Escondido Canyon Road.
The victim reported being on the receiving end of two separate barrages of bullets that appeared to be from an automatic weapon around 3:46 a.m. that day, according to Burgos-Lopez. There were multiple witnesses, but no injuries were reported as a result of the gunfire, he added.
Officers patrolled the area and found a 2005 silver sedan with very dark window tinting, matching the witnesses’ descriptions, parked in the northwestern parking lot of the Kohl’s Department Store at Golden Valley Road. Its plates were traced back to Acton.
Ocampo was taken into custody by officers with CHP’s Major Crimes Unit near an Isabella Parkway home two days after the incident was reported. Officers towed his car and said they found shell casings that matched the shooting inside.
A second suspect in the incident, 25-year-old Manuel Marquez, was charged with two felonies, accessory after the fact and felon in possession of a firearm. CHP officers accused him of helping Ocampo hide the weapon shortly after the incident, based on security footage they found near the scene.
L.A. County Superior Court records available online indicate that Marquez surrendered on May 6 to serve a 90-day sentence in an L.A. County jail. LASD records indicate he’s being held at Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Downtown Los Angeles, with a return date to court of Aug. 5.
