HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — A convicted robber, who tried to appeal the sentence imposed, will have to serve his time in prison as the Supreme Court of Guam found no error.
Dennis Castro Aldan was convicted of robbing a Papa John’s restaurant in Mangilao and the Loco Mart store in Dededo in 2019.
He was found guilty of two counts of second-degree robbery as a second-degree felony, two counts of conspiracy to commit second-degree robbery as a second-degree felony and three counts of terrorizing as a third-degree felony.
“The trial court grouped the robbery and conspiracy charges together by location for sentencing purposes. Aldan was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment (with credit for time served) for the robbery and conspiracy charges related to the Papa John’s robbery, with ‘each count to run concurrent of each other,’” the Supreme Court opinion states.
Aldan also received a 10-year sentence for the Loco Mart robbery, which was to run concurrently with the Papa John’s robbery sentence.
In addition to this, Aldan was sentenced to five years for terrorizing.
In total, he was sentenced to 20 years behind bars.
On appeal, Aldan was partially successful.
“This court agreed with his arguments that the robbery convictions were multiplicitous and that Terrorizing is an included offense of Second Degree Robbery. … We upheld Charge One of Second Degree Robbery and reversed on Charge Two and on all three counts of Terrorizing. … The case was remanded for re-sentencing,” the Supreme Court said.
An amended judgment of conviction rendered in February reduced the sentencing for the robbery and conspiracy charges to six years for each location. His total amended sentence stood at 12 years.
Although Aldan still believes the sentence to be an error, the Supreme Court disagreed.
“Aldan’s appeal is based on a misunderstanding of our previous decision. The trial court correctly understood our instructions on remand and imposed a sentence that was within its discretion. We affirm,” the Supreme Court opined.
Dennis Aldan
