Despite pleading guilty to more than 50 felonies, a serial burglar was set to walk out of jail Thursday, thanks in part to a California law.
In a Riverside County courtroom Thursday, Christopher Jackson pleaded guilty to 54 counts of commercial burglary. Prosecutors say it is the 77th felony he has pled guilty to in the past nine months. Despite that, he was slated to be released from jail.
Jackson, 32, is known as the “Snake Burglar” because of the way he slithered across floors to avoid alarms at dozens of Riverside County businesses. One of the businesses he targeted was D’Elia’s Grinders, where he stole cash and caused damage costing the owner roughly $3,000.
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"Since the night of our business being burglarized, I learned of 30 similar charges in November of 2022, and I was told [Jackson] was sentenced to six 16-month consecutive sentences and yet was released in just 10 days,” D’Elia’s Grinders owner Brian Perrone said.
During his victim impact statement, he expressed anger at Assembly Bill 109, which voters passed in 2011. The bill's basic function is to ease overcrowding in California’s state prison system by diverting inmates convicted of nonviolent felonies to county jails.
However, prosecutors say county jails are also overcrowded, so habitual criminals like Jackson are often released within hours of being arrested.
"How many days will he actually stay in jail because of overcrowding?” Perrone asked.
The judge sentenced Jackson to 12 years in custody, but with time already served, he was to be released sometime Thursday.
A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office said that because of AB 109, Jackson won't spend any more time in jail unless he reoffends or violates his probation agreement, which includes wearing a GPS monitoring device and checking into a drug rehab by Friday.
His conditions include 12 years of supervised release during which he will not be allowed to enter or go near any of the affected businesses, Riverside County District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Brooke Beare said.
"In addition to that, he'll have to spend six months in an in-patient residential treatment program. He'll also be ordered to pay more than $158,00 in restitution,” Beare added.
Perrone said he doesn't believe he will ever see any of that restitution money. Instead, he's hoping state lawmakers will take action by amending AB 109 so habitual criminals are forced to spend time in state prison.
"How does anybody think this is OK? How? It just doesn't make any sense,” Perrone said.
