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# Man Sentenced for Carjacking, Kidnapping in Pacific Palisades Crime Spree
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/man-sentenced-for-carjacking-kidnapping-in-pacific-palisades-crime-spree/
- Published: 2020-07-08T12:00:05.000Z
- Updated: 2024-12-12T00:43:10.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Community, Crime, News, assault with a deadly weapon, Brian Thomas Cruz, carjacking, kidnapping, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2025-11-06 12:37

A 50-year-old man was sentenced to 141 years to life in state prison after being convicted for a 2014 crime spree in Pacific Palisades, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced.

Brian Thomas Cruz, a transient, was found guilty during a court trial of four felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon, an automobile; three counts of carjacking; two counts each of first-degree burglary, person present, second-degree robbery, criminal threats and reckless driving causing specified injury, a bone fracture; and one count each of kidnapping and false imprisonment by violence.

Case SA088296 was prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Eugene Hanrahan.

On Aug. 11, 2014, Cruz went into a woman’s home and forced her at knifepoint to drive him in her car, which she deliberately crashed so she could run away, the prosecutor said.

The defendant went on to carjack a second woman, a teacher near Palisades High School, ramming the stolen car into several other vehicles, the prosecutor added.

Cruz then abandoned the teacher’s vehicle and entered a home where he forced a third woman to surrender her car keys. The defendant crashed that victim’s car into other vehicles before running a red light and colliding into a car near Webb Way in Malibu, according to evidence presented at the 2019 trial.

The case was investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department, West Los Angeles Division.

*Submitted by Ricardo Santiago*