PORT TOWNSEND — A Lynnwood man who led police on a two-county chase last month will spend nearly two years in a prison-based drug offender sentencing alternative, calling it a “wake-up call.”
Oscar Hernandez-Buenrostro, 22, was sentenced to 21 1/2 months in prison Friday in Jefferson County Superior Court after he previously had pleaded guilty to three charges, including the possession of a stolen motor vehicle.
He will serve an additional 21 1/2 months in community custody after he completes his sentence.
Judge Keith Harper accepted the plea agreement, which dismissed three additional charges.
Hernandez-Buenrostro also pleaded guilty Dec. 20 to eluding a pursuing police vehicle and making or possession motor vehicle theft tools.
Possession of a stolen motor vehicle, a Class B felony, was the most serious crime and had a standard sentencing range of 43 to 57 months, according to court documents. The conviction for eluding a pursuing police vehicle was for a sentence of 12 months, and the possession of vehicle theft tools for 364 days.
All three sentences will run concurrently.
Hernandez-Buenrostro led law enforcement officers on a chase that began Nov. 17 after he stole a pickup truck from the 7 Cedars Casino parking lot in Clallam County to the end of Evans Vista Road in Port Townsend, where a Kitsap County K-9 unit tracked him down.
In between, he reached speeds up to 118 mph, according to pursuing Jefferson County Sheriff’s deputies.
“Thank you for giving me a wake-up call,” Hernandez-Buenrostro told the court on Friday. “I’m pretty sure this is the last time you will see me in this county unless I’m here for you to check up on me.”
Hernandez-Buenrostro has nine prior convictions, including five felonies in King County. Two of them were for first-degree theft of more than $5,000, and two others were for taking a vehicle without permission.
He also has been convicted of second-degree vehicle prowling, a gross misdemeanor, and vehicle trespassing, a misdemeanor.
Harper asked Hernandez-Buenrostro why he thought this sentence would be the one that turns his life around.
“I’m too young, and now I have a fiancee and I’m going to be a father,” he said.
“Every time I had been in jail before, I bailed out. This was a high bail, and it was a wake-up call.”
Hernandez-Buenrostro had been in the Jefferson County Jail since he was arrested Nov. 17, and bail was set at $100,000 at his initial appearance the following day.
Court documents state Hernandez-Buenrostro went past stop sticks that law enforcement officers set down on state Highway 104 in an attempt to slow the vehicle, and then he spun out and went into the ditch when he attempted to turn onto Highway 19.
The dismissed charges included second-degree assault with a deadly weapon after he allegedly backed the stolen pickup out of the ditch and into a pursuing deputy’s vehicle.
Two alleged accomplices have been charged with multiple crimes as they reportedly ran interference between deputies who were pursuing Hernandez-Buenrostro.
Mikayla Shaye Winkler, 22, of Renton and Joshua Taylor Daniels, 26, of Renton have separately pleaded not guilty and await trials scheduled for Feb. 18.
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Jefferson County Managing Editor Brian McLean can be reached at 360-385-2335, ext. 6, or at bmclean@peninsuladailynews.com.