A felon who carjacked a man and drove the victim’s car into Moreno Valley, culminating in his fleeing into a home and barricading himself inside, pleaded guilty Wednesday to felony evading and was immediately sentenced to two years, eight months in state prison.
Johnny Isaac Zuniga, 29, of Perris, admitted the charge under a plea agreement with the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office. In exchange for his admission, prosecutors dropped four related counts against Zuniga.
Superior Court Judge Gail O’Rane certified the terms of the plea deal and imposed the sentence stipulated by the prosecution and defense.
According to a pretrial services brief filed by the District Attorney’s Office, in the predawn hours of Sept. 13, 2023, the defendant confronted a Menifee motorist at an unspecified location and used a weapon to forcibly remove the victim from the car, after which Zuniga sped away.
He drove 20 miles north into Moreno Valley and was traveling westbound on Sunnymead Boulevard, near Indian Avenue, when sheriff’s patrol deputies spotted him around 3:30 a.m. and ran a records check on the car, quickly confirming it had been reported stolen, prosecutors said.
The patrolmen signaled Zuniga to stop, but he accelerated, triggering a pursuit, according to sheriff’s officials.
As Zuniga headed southbound, deputies in another patrol unit deployed a spike strip in the path of the stolen car, instantly deflating its tires and causing the vehicle to careen off the road and through a chain-link fence at the edge of a flood control channel, according to the D.A.’s brief.
The defendant bailed out of the car and ran toward the Campanilia Fortuna Estates, where he vanished from sight.
Deputies sent up drones with loud speakers, ordering Zuniga to surrender, at which point three people emerged from a house, yelling that he had gone inside their residence and bolted the door.
“Deputies surrounded the property and told him to come outside,” the brief said. “He barricaded himself in the residence for a few hours.”
A crisis negotiator called him, and he “ultimately surrendered because the deputy on the phone told him during negotiations that he shouldn’t destroy an innocent person’s home,” according to the brief.
No one was injured.
Court records show Zuniga had prior convictions for domestic violence, assault resulting in great bodily injury, receiving a stolen vehicle and trespassing.