WINTER GARDEN. Fla.,None — Late Friday night a jury found Victor Sanchez guilty on nine charges stemming from a violent 2009 home invasion in Winter Garden.
The jury got the case late Friday afternoon. The jury had a transcript from Victor Sanchez's hour-and-a-half confession that they can read, and they had 11 charges to consider that could send the 22-year-old to prison for life.
The jury found Sanchez not guilty on 2 charges of attempted murder, but guilty on the remaining 9 charges, including kidnapping.
Sanchez has a 6th-grade education and was working as a landscaper when he got involved with the brutal kidnapping and robbery of a Winter Garden family in November 2009.
He held the family at gunpoint and helped tie them up. His defense attorney told the jury that Sanchez was forced into it.
"That's what his job is. That's what he has to do to stay alive," defense attorney Jeff Stone said.
But prosecutors said Sanchez never said that during his video confession the day he was arrested, and when he cried and apologized, it was all about him.
"His anguish isn't from threats of harm. His anguish is, 'How many years am I gonna get'? prosecutor Carla Ogden said.
If he's convicted, he could get life. He admitted having a gun and helping his cousin, another man and a woman who's still on the run hold a businessman, his pregnant wife and their young son with autism hostage to rob them.
On the third day, the family realized they could identify their attackers and would probably be killed.
Wife Marcela lured the woman to the kitchen and threatened her with a knife to call 911. They fought, then the kidnappers got even rougher.
Marcela was blindfolded, tied up and pistol-whipped. Her will to save her family drove her to jump backwards from a second-floor window and run, only to be shot twice.
But her next-door neighbor, who also was shot at, called 911. They all survived.
Sanchez is scheduled to be sentenced April 3.
WFTV
