California judge sentences man who robbed elderly woman at knifepoint in her home
A Placer Superior Court judge on Thursday sentenced a Yuba County man who targeted a retirement community last year in Lincoln before robbing an elderly woman at knifepoint after using a ruse to enter her home, prosecutors said.
Judge Eugene Gini sentenced Joshua Daniel Allen King, 36, of Marysville to 17 years in prison, the Placer County District Attorney’s Office announced in a news release.
King was convicted of first-degree residential robbery and theft from an elder adult. Prosecutors said his charges included enhancements for committing a violent crime on a victim older than 65 years old, using a deadly and dangerous weapon in the crime, and being previously convicted of a serious or violent felony.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Shannon Quigley, who prosecuted the case, said King targeted the retirement community, knocking on several doors before “he exploited a vulnerable elderly woman living alone.”
“She was terrorized in her own home — an impact that reverberates throughout the entire retirement community, taking away the residents’ sense of security,” Quigley said in the news release. “Our seniors deserve to feel safe and protected, not targeted or exploited.”
On the evening of Oct. 29, 2022, King entered the home of an 89-year-old woman on Lariat Loop. The Lincoln Police Department has said King showed up at her front door under the pretense of asking to retrieve his child’s ball from her backyard.
Once the woman allowed King inside, he pulled out a knife and demanded money, then left with the woman’s cash, checks, credit cards, cellphone and driver’s license, police said. He also cut the victim’s landline phone line. The woman was not harmed.
King tried the same ruse a few minutes earlier at a nearby home, but was not allowed inside, according to the Police Department.
Prosecutors said King went to an ATM at Thunder Valley Casino, where he withdrew cash from the woman’s bank account. Police said detectives identified King as the robbery suspect after he used the woman’s credit card at a local business.
Five days after the woman was robbed in her home, police arrested King at his Marysville home.
