A state appellate court Wednesday upheld an ex-con’s conviction for carjacking and killing a 54-year-old man by running him over with the victim’s pickup truck in the Westlake area of Los Angeles almost four years ago.
The three-judge panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the defense’s contention that the trial court erred in admitting evidence of four prior uncharged acts in which Mitchell Ray Castillo was seen either stealing or preparing to steal a car.
The appellate panel noted in its 11-page ruling that “Castillo’s prior activities tended in reason to establish the absence of accident or mistake in taking” the truck belonging to the victim, Ricardo Mota.
Castillo stole a pickup truck from Mota in a public parking structure on Dec. 11, 2017, running over and killing Mota in the process, the justices noted.
Mota — who was found lying on the ground of the rooftop parking lot — died at the scene from multiple blunt force injuries consistent with him having been hit by a truck, according to the appellate court panel’s opinion.
Witnesses told detectives they saw Mota fighting with a man trying to get into his truck. An unidentified construction worker told a parking attendant that the truck had been taken from the owner, who had been run over by the vehicle, according to the appellate court panel’s ruling.
Video surveillance showed Castillo driving from the scene in Mota’s gray Nissan pickup, which the victim parked in the structure every day when he went to work as a maintenance contractor for the Housing Authority of the city of Los Angeles.
Castillo and the stolen vehicle were spotted by Los Angeles police officers within hours of the killing.
Castillo’s DNA was found in the truck, and Mota’s DNA was found on Castillo’s clothing, the truck and the parking structure, according to the appellate court panel’s ruling.
Castillo was convicted in January 2020 of first-degree murder and carjacking.
“The conduct was a callous disregard for humanity,” Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mildred Escobedo said shortly before sentencing Castillo to 85 years to life in state prison in February 2020.
The judge called the defendant’s conduct “vile” and said then that he has “shown absolutely no remorse.”
Castillo repeatedly interrupted the sentencing hearing, lobbing insults at Deputy District Attorney Paul Przelomiec and the defendant’s own trial attorney, James Cooper.
The judge apologized for the defendant’s remarks and noted that Castillo had been found mentally competent to stand trial.
“Now he knows he’s on the brink of prison and he’s trying to get out,” Escobedo said of the defendant, who had a 2013 conviction for burglary and was on probation for a 2017 conviction for criminal threats when he killed Mota.
The victim’s stepdaughter, Crystal Aceves, told the judge that Mota had always treated his stepchildren as his own.
“He was always there for us,” she said.
She also read a statement from Mota’s son, who was 13 when his father was killed.
“I feel like I have lost a big part of my childhood and my family,” the teen wrote, noting that his father promised that he would help him decorate a Christmas tree but never came back.