Teen gets 11 years for beating girlfriend, attacking 93-year-old

An 18-year-old Daly City man was sentenced Wednesday to more than 11 years in prison for a crime spree last year that included attacking a 93-year-old man and duct-taping his mouth shut while ransacking his home, San Mateo County prosecutors said.

Christopher Vera, who was 17 during the crimes but was charged as an adult with 13 felony counts, pleaded no contest on May 9 to all charges and was sentenced Wednesday to 11 years and eight months in prison, with 516 days credit for time already served, prosecutors said.

Among Vera’s crimes were pushing his girlfriend to the ground and kicking her in the head several times on May 27, 2016, then three days later committing a home burglary, according to the district attorney’s office.

On June 4, 2016, he broke into the home of an 85-year-old woman via an open window but fled when she confronted him.

A day later, he crawled through the doggy door of a 93-year-old man’s home, then waited in the basement for several hours as he heard the man upstairs, prosecutors said.

The victim then came down the stairs and Vera hit him over the head with a glass object, duct-taped his mouth and dragged him upstairs to a bedroom, then ransacked the home, prosecutors said. The 93-year-old’s injuries required staples to close the laceration.

Vera then used the victim’s credit card at several stores at the Stonestown Galleria mall and surveillance footage from those stores led investigators to identify him as the suspect, prosecutors said.

Vera’s defense attorney Gerritt Rutgers was not immediately available to comment on the case.