Couple sentenced for attempted murder of her ex-boyfriend

A young couple from Santa Ana will spend years in state prison for trying to kill a man at his Costa Mesa home in 2012.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals on Tuesday sentenced 20-year-old Fernando Sanchez to 20 years behind bars and 21-year-old Jessica Gascon to nine years for the attempted murder of Gascon’s former boyfriend.

Members of Sanchez’s family wiped away tears as they heard the punishment. They called the sentence unfairly harsh for a boy who they said was trying to protect the mother of his child.

Sanchez was 17 when he shot at Gascon’s ex-boyfriend. She was 18.

Authorities have not identified the ex-boyfriend, who was 20 at the time.

“I don’t understand the legal system,” Carlos Alcaraz, Sanchez’s uncle, said outside the courtroom.

According to the Orange County district attorney’s office, Gascon sparked the plan to kill the man on April 10, 2012, by telling Sanchez that her former boyfriend had made “unwanted sexual advances” that night.

Around midnight, Gascon called the man on a cellphone and told him to meet her outside his home, near Maple and Wilson streets in Costa Mesa, according to authorities. Sanchez confronted him, brandished a gun and shot at him as he ran, prosecutors said.

No one was hurt in the gunfire, but at least one bullet hit a nearby home, police said.

Family members said Sanchez intended to scare the man, but prosecutors said the couple conspired to commit murder.

Sanchez’s uncle said the ex-boyfriend’s sexual advances amounted to attempted rape.

“If someone did that to your sister, your daughter, your wife, what would you do?” Alcaraz said.

Prosecutors originally charged Sanchez and Gascon with five felonies each: attempted premeditated murder, conspiracy, assault with a firearm, criminal threats and shooting at an inhabited dwelling.

A variety of potential sentencing enhancements against Sanchez meant he faced a possible 55 years to life in prison if convicted on every count. Gascon faced 25 years to life.

As part of a plea agreement, prosecutors dropped most of the charges against Gascon and some of the allegations against Sanchez.

Gascon pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of assault with a firearm. Sanchez pleaded guilty to attempted murder, assault with a firearm, criminal threats and shooting at an inhabited dwelling.

Prosecutor Cliff Page said he dropped more charges against Gascon based on what he thought he could prove at trial.

Ultimately, Page said, Sanchez was “the one that was holding the gun and pulling the trigger.”