Parolee receives 16 years, 4 months in prison for pursuit, carjacking

LOS ANGELES >> A parolee was sentenced Thursday to 16 years and four months in prison for carjacking a driver at gunpoint and leading police on a wild chase from Los Angeles to Montebello last year.

Officers shot and wounded Aaron Lorta at the end of the Feb. 9, 2015 pursuit after they saw a gun in his hand. They later found out the weapon wasn’t real.

Deputy District Attoey Eric Perrodin said Lorta used an Airsoft pistol. He thinks the 30-year-old Long Beach man was under the influence of a drug at the time.

Lorta took a deal in the case.

Greg Risling, a spokesman for the District Attoey’s Office, said Lorta pleaded no contest on Dec. 28 to one count of carjacking and one count of fleeing a pursuing officer’s vehicle while driving recklessly.

Three counts of attempted carjacking were dismissed at Thursday’s sentencing held at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles.

A conviction on all the charges would have meant a possible maximum sentence of 27 years and 10 months in prison.

The Feb. 9, 2015 incident started when Los Angeles Police said officers ran a license plate of a Toyota at 1st and Soto streets around 5 p.m. and found out it was a stolen car. (Perrodin said the car belonged to Lorta’s mother.)

Lorta, who was behind the wheel, took off.

The Toyota headed the wrong way at times and hit several vehicles.

At Imperial Highway and Garfield Avenue in South Gate, he struck another vehicle and abandoned the damaged Toyota. He tried to steal a white car but it sped off. He pointed a gun at the driver of a Volkswagen and took that car.

When the Volkswagen got struck in traffic in Montebello, he left that vehicle and tried to carjack two other drivers. Lorta was shot twice in the upper body and twice in the lower body, according to Perrodin.

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