Fourteen years in prison was handed down June 4 for a Boulevard arsonist who had jumped bail and was a fugitive for a year.
Anthony Ramon Saldana, 31, was sentenced to the 14 years which was the maximum sentence he agreed to receive in El Cajon Superior Court.
Saldana was screaming in the middle of the night after setting fire to a mobile home on June 14, 2017, on Crestwood Road in Boulevard and a property owner shot him in the right arm after Saldana apparently broke into some cars. Sheriff’s deputies then arrested him.
Saldana had been free on $100,000 bond and became a fugitive when he didn’t show up to get a trial date set. A warrant for his arrest was first issued March 16, 2018, but he was not apprehended until March 29, 2019 by immigration and customs agents.
Deputy District Attorney Will LaFond said Saldana agreed to settle his case with a guilty plea to arson and he also admitted going to prison twice before on other offenses.
Court records say he has previously been convicted of two drug offenses, burglary, and felony assault. The two prison priors add some time to the sentence, said LaFond.
Saldana was also charged with trespassing in an unrelated 2017 incident in which he tried to break into a house in El Cajon while looking for a woman. That charge was later dropped.
