{"id":15396,"date":"2012-07-02T14:41:40","date_gmt":"2012-07-02T18:41:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=15396"},"modified":"2012-07-02T14:41:40","modified_gmt":"2012-07-02T18:41:40","slug":"tow-truck-driver-sentenced-to-35-years-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=15396","title":{"rendered":"Tow Truck Driver Sentenced To 35 Years In Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Friday, <strong>Judge William Fuente<\/strong> sentenced tow truck company owner\/driver, <strong>Donald Montanez<\/strong>, to 35 years in prison. <strong>Montanez<\/strong> was convicted of the January 8, 2006 shooting death of <strong>Glen Rich<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The jury earlier rejected a theory by prosecutors that <strong>Montanez<\/strong> acted with a depraved mind during a confrontation near the Sugar Shack Strip Club. Jurors also didn\u2019t believe<strong> Montanez<\/strong> was acting in self defense as<strong> Rich<\/strong> was trying to get his car back from a towing drop site.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Montanez<\/strong> was found guilty of manslaughter and third-degree felony murder. The latter charge means a death was caused in the commission of a felony. The manslaughter conviction was later vacated.<\/p>\n<p>On the night of the shooting, <strong>Montanez<\/strong> had directed his employees to tow <strong>Rich\u2019s<\/strong> vehicle from behind the Sugar Shack Strip Club, where prosecutors said the car was legally parked. The car and others were taken to a nearby drop site that property owners said<strong> Montanez<\/strong> and his company were not authorized to use.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors said the illegal tow amounted to grand theft, but the defense argued it was a misdemeanor or civil violation of towing statutes.<\/p>\n<p>During the trial, witnesses testified <strong>Montanez<\/strong> pointed his laser-sited gun at several people who had walked to where the cars were being temporarily kept on their way to the impound lot.<\/p>\n<p>Witnesses for the defense testified <strong>Rich<\/strong> was driving toward <strong>Montanez<\/strong> and his employees when <strong>Montanez<\/strong> fired the gun. Defense attorneys also argued that <strong>Montanez<\/strong> was in fear for his life and the lives of his employees and made a split-second decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Friday, Judge William Fuente sentenced tow truck company owner\/driver, Donald Montanez, to 35 years in prison. Montanez was convicted of the January 8, 2006 shooting death of Glen Rich. The jury earlier rejected a theory by prosecutors that Montanez acted with a depraved mind during a confrontation near the Sugar Shack Strip Club. Jurors [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}