One of three men accused of burglarizing a Ridgefield house was sentenced Tuesday in Clark County Superior Court to two years in prison.
Omar R. Ortega, 36, of Houston, Texas, pleaded guilty to first-degree burglary and third-degree assault in connection with the March 30 incident.
His two co-defendants, Jean Carlos Bachemolina, 43, and Edgar Bulles Torres, 36, both of Monroe, La., previously pleaded guilty to first-degree burglary and were sentenced to 20 and 15 months, respectively.
According to an affidavit of probable cause, Bachemolina told investigators that he had been in Vancouver for only one night when he, Torres and Ortega went driving around in a van at about 2:45 a.m. Ortega, who was driving, stopped at a dark house in the 2000 block of South Osprey Drive in Ridgefield.
Ortega stayed in the van while Torres and Bachemolina pushed on a glass door, breaking it, and went inside. The men didn’t think anyone was home, but Bachemolina found a 31-year-old woman hiding in an upstairs bedroom closet, the affidavit states.
The woman was on the phone with a 911 dispatcher, who reportedly heard a “female scream, the sound of a struggle and then the line went dead,” court records said. The burglars took and broke the woman’s phone, according to Ridgefield police.
The men ran back to the van and fled, prompting a police pursuit that ended a few miles away when the van stopped abruptly in the middle of the street and all three ran from the vehicle, court documents state.
A Clark County sheriff’s deputy found Ortega, and a short time later, police dogs located Torres and Bachemolina hiding in thick vegetation, the affidavit said.
In addition to his prison sentence, Ortega will serve 18 months of community custody.
