OAKLAND — A Concord man avoided federal prison after prosecutors convinced a judge he had “excelled” while on pretrial release in a custody alternative program, court records show.
Chris Bezucha, 28, was arrested two years ago and charged with being a felon in possession of an AM-15 rifle. But he was released to a program in Oakland in lieu of pretrial detention.
In a sentencing memo, prosecutors made the unusual move of praising Bezucha’s “particularly impressive” conduct while out of jail and asked for no additional custody time. His attorney wrote in a memo that Bezucha was struggling with drug addiction when he was arrested in 2020.
Bezucha was arrested after a traffic stop that led police to search the Concord trailer where he was living and find the rifle. He wasn’t allowed to possess guns because of a prior assault conviction, records show.
“You can’t go backwards at this point,” Bezucha told a probation officer, according to a defense sentencing memo. “You only get so many chances to do what I am doing here and I am not going to mess it up.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com