By Macy Lu
SACRAMENTO – Logan Woods and co-defendant Jesse Swafford pleaded no contest to a 2019 first degree residential burglary charge this Friday here in Sacramento County Superior Court—but their sentences were wildly different.
One defendant is looking at a sentence of eight years, the other more than 28 years in prison.
The court explained the vastly disparate sentence lengths were because of their additional no contest pleas to separate charges and their criminal records.
Pertaining to the shared charge, the court report indicated that in Jan. of 2019, the defendants “drove to [victim’s] house, broke into the house through the front door” while the victim was in the shower. After one of the defendants was discovered, “both of them fled in the vehicle with some items in hand that were dropped on the front lawn.”
District Deputy Attorney Ryan Roebuck highlighted that the fact that the victim was home when the burglary occurred made it a “serious and violent felony,” according to California penal code.
Woods was separately charged for the unlawful possession of “personal identification information” of several people “with the intent to defraud them.”
That evidence was discovered last Feb. 28 when “officers entered the area where Woods was staying with his co-defendant Morales.” The warrant investigation led to “a significant amount of identifying information for many more than 10 individuals at that time.”
Due to a prior strike, Judge McCormick sentenced Woods a doubled term of eight years in state prison for the burglary charge and a doubled term of four years for the attempted identity fraud, which will run concurrently with his first sentence. He also required Woods to pay restitution to the homeowner victim and if necessary, to the victims of the attempted identity fraud.
Co-defendant Swafford was sentenced for the shared residential charge as well as re-sentencing for three other 2019 burglary charges he committed independent of Woods.
Regarding the shared charge, Judge Kevin McCormick sentenced Swafford to an upper term of six years, doubled by virtue of a prior strike to 12 years. As for two of the other re-sentencing charges, he sentenced Swafford a doubled term of two years and eight months. For the last one, which was a second degree rather than first degree burglary, Judge McCormick sentenced him to a doubled term of one year four months.
As part of Swafford’s re-sentencing, these three charges became subordinate terms to the principle term of 12 years for the most recent burglary. This means all of his sentences will run consecutively rather than concurrently.
With Swafford’s admission to two prior felony charges—each imposing five-year sentences—his aggregate term totals to 28 years and eight months.
Finally, “in the interest of justice and in light of the plea” the People motioned to dismiss any “remaining counts or allegations as they pertain to Mr. Swafford,” even though he is set to spend nearly three decades in prison.
Macy is a junior from Orange County, CA, studying Communications and English at UC Davis. She loves meeting people, reading books, and writing creatively.
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