Sacramento man arrested in daylong hostage standoff has day in court. Why it was brief
Twenty-four hours, 22 criminal counts and now a Nov. 12 court date for the Sacramento man who took eight people hostage and held police at bay during a nearly daylong ordeal before his surrender to authorities last week.
Eric Jaime Leyva returned briefly to a Sacramento courtroom Tuesday on the 22-count criminal complaint filed by Sacramento County District Attorney’s prosecutors in last week’s hostage drama that ended with his arrest Wednesday.
The Public Defender’s Office attorneys told Sacramento Superior Court Commissioner Ken Brody the office has an overload of cases and cannot represent Leyva. The Sacramento man will be assigned a court-appointed attorney before Brody at next week’s hearing.
Leyva, 27, has been held in a high-security wing of Sacramento County Main Jail since his arrest, his violent spree laid out in deputy prosecutor Monica Robinson’s nine-page Nov. 1 filing: the accusations of domestic violence, forcible rape and false imprisonment; the criminal threats and the knife he allegedly carried to back them up.
His alleged victim, Robinson argued in court filings, was “reasonably in sustained fear of her safety and the safety of her family.”
Leyva struck her Oct. 9, Robinson alleged. A Sacramento judge signed a stay-away order on Oct. 14.
He found his victim again on Oct. 30, Sacramento police said. Officers were called to a home on Cabrillo Way late that morning on a report of a domestic disturbance. They found the victim who identified her attacker as Leyva, officials said.
Around 4 p.m. Oct. 30, officials spotted Leyva, tied to assault with a deadly weapon and kidnapping charges, inside a truck with a man and 13-year-old girl, triggering a slow-speed pursuit that led to the daylong standoff with Sacramento police in a south Oak Park cul-de-sac.
The girl was pulled from the truck at gunpoint and led into a home on Mello Court, a human shield against the officers who converged on the scene. The man behind the wheel was unhurt. Investigators say he did not figure in the crime.
Seven others inside the home soon became captives held by the man who sneaked in, Sacramento police said, through an open garage door.
The hostages eventually went free. Six were released in the hours after Leyva entered the home and two others – a woman and the 13-year-old girl – escaped an unaware Leyva the next morning.
Each captive added a felony count for prosecutors: false imprisonment “for purposes of protection from arrest .... and for the purpose of using a victim as a shield.”
Sacramento police SWAT members soon ended the ordeal, arresting Leyva without injury.
Leyva remains held without bail, according to jail records.
This story was originally published November 5, 2019 at 5:34 PM.
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