Up next for a Sarasota man convicted in a 2015 string of vehicle burglaries and thefts is the 2nd District Court of Appeal.
Ron Maurice Johnson Jr., 21, appealed after 12th Circuit Judge Deno Economou sentenced him to 15 years in the Florida Department of Corrections.
The judge found Johnson guilty and sentenced him in June after he pleaded no contest in 12 cases.
The first of 12 cases — vehicle burglaries and auto thefts ranging from Ellenton to Parrish and west to the islands between September and December 2015 — involved a Sept. 30, 2015, police chase, which tracked Johnson and a stolen vehicle into a Longboat Key subdivision.
LBKPD, Bradenton Beach, Holmes Beach and Manatee County law enforcement, including a K-9 and helicopter units, combined to arrest Johnson and three others, as well as locate the stolen vehicle.
With Johnson, police found Johnathon Hunter, Alexia Simmons and Brianna Scarbrough, all of Sarasota, walking on Lyons Street, wet and sandy, with the vehicle left on a street across a canal from the suspects.
In November 2015, the state closed its trespass to conveyance cases against Hunter, Simmons and Scarbrough without charges.
Economou entered judgments against Johnson June 16, with costs, assessments and a five-year driver’s license suspension, as well as restitution judgments in some cases, after accepting plea deals offered by his 12th Circuit public defender, Philip Paine.
Johnson was credited for 220 days of jail served.
On the charges of burglary, stolen vehicle and fleeing and eluding, Johnson was sentenced to five-year concurrent prison sentences and, in three cases, because weapons were involved, his sentence was upped to 15 years in the DOC.
June 29, Paine filed a court paper that states the trial court “erred prejudicially” in sentence and judgment.
In another court paper, the public defender assigned a 10th Circuit public defender to handle Johnson’s appeal.