A 30-year-old man just out of custody after serving a three-year sentence for a crime spree in Tustin has been charged with trying to steal a cellphone from a victim in Anaheim.
Sean Anthony Aguilera was charged Tuesday with a felony count of attempted robbery.
Aguilera is accused of trying to steal the cellphone on Friday outside of a liquor store, according to Anaheim Police Department Sgt. Matt Sutter. The victim fought back and was able to get the phone back, Sutter said.
Aguilera was sentenced June 28 to three years in prison for the October 2022 crime spree in Tustin. At the time he had two years of custody credits.
Aguilera was convicted June 3 of attempted robbery and assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury, both felonies, as well as single misdemeanor counts of battery and groping.
Deputy District Attorney Christopher Cook argued for four years and eight months in prison at Aguilera’s sentencing in June.
Aguilera, he argued in court papers, “targeted three separate, unrelated women,” on Oct. 21, 2022.
In a letter to one of the victims and his comments to probation officials, Aguilera “failed to acknowledge the level of physical and psychological harm inflicted on his victims,” Cook said.
The victim also “felt immense fear” during the assaults, he added.
One of the women “remains in constant fear in and around her neighborhood,” the prosecutor said.
Defense attorneys in court papers said the defendant lived with his father and the father’s boyfriend when he was young and that they were “physically abusive” toward him. When he was 10 he was hit in the head when the boyfriend hurled something at the defendant, prompting the boy to then go live with his mother, according to the Public Defender’s Office.
The defendant was also stabbed in his early 20s when he intervened to stop another man from hitting on a friend of his, defense attorneys said. After that he “changed,” and while living with his father he began drinking heavily, the defense attorneys said.
Aguilera ended up homeless and lived on the streets for about five years, the attorneys said. His mother told attorneys that he binge drinks and lapses into blackouts and can’t remember the crime spree.
Aguilera pleaded guilty in April but later changed his mind because he did not realize he would have to register as a sex offender.
Police were called at 7:51 p.m. Oct. 21, 2022, to a gas station at 14244 Newport Ave., between the Santa Ana (5) Freeway and McFadden Avenue, according to prosecutors. A victim who was “distraught” and “visibly shaking and crying uncontrollably” said she was going to get a “booster shot” after visiting her aunt when Aguilera approached her from behind saying, “Jason,” prosecutors said in a trial brief.
The woman said she didn’t know anyone by that name, prompting the defendant to respond, “Yes, you do,” prosecutors said.
Aguilera “lunged at her and threw his arms forward,” and then groped her private parts, prosecutors said.
The woman shouted for help and managed to wriggle away as he slapped her on the buttocks, prosecutors said.
The woman ran for help and got someone to call 911 for her, prosecutors said.
At about 8:16 p.m. that same night, police were dispatched to 14802 Newport Ave., about seven-tenths of a mile north of the previous assault, regarding another woman who was eight months pregnant who said Aguilera punched her in the stomach, prosecutors said.
The woman was walking with her mother in the alley behind her apartment building taking out the trash when the defendant, who was standing on an electrical box with a large piece of wood, hopped up onto a carport, prosecutors said.
When the woman advised him to be careful he allegedly punched her in the stomach, then left when she asked someone to call 911.
Aguilera was arrested at about 8:20 p.m. and was identified by the victims, prosecutors said.
Three days later, another woman came forward when she saw news reports about Aguilera. She said she was on a walk at about 6:30 p.m. Oct. 21, 2022, when the defendant approached her on a skateboard and “attempted to grab her black Fitbit from her wrist and tugged on it multiple times,” prosecutors said.
Aguilera told police he slapped the woman on the butt because he had been dared to by a friend, prosecutors said. He denied punching the pregnant woman, prosecutors said.
Aguilera pleaded guilty to felony vandalism and misdemeanor criminal threats Nov. 19, 2021, and was sentenced to 16 months in jail, according to court records.
He was placed on two years probation, but violated terms of probation and was jailed for 60 days in July, according to court records.
Aguilera was also convicted of a hit-and-run with injury and was sentenced to a year in jail in January 2020, prosecutors said.