Burglar in Sonoma case gets 6 years in prison

<p>Two collect calls from Sonoma County jail ended up costing a 30-year-old woman her freedom Tuesday.</p><p>Amber True of Woodside was sentenced to six years in state prison for accepting the 20- and 40-minute calls from her boyfriend and co-defendant in a 2009 burglary of the home of a Sonoma Valley family killed in a car crash.</p><p>The boyfriend, Michael Gutierrez, 27, was sentenced to eight years in prison for the break-in, in part because of his long record. True was given county jail time and probation under the condition that she have no contact with her former partner in crime.</p><p>But soon after True left court that day, she received two collect calls from Gutierrez. Prosecutors said the duo cussed out Judge Arthur Wick on the phone and joked about someday living together in a neighborhood that was free of burglars.</p><p>They didn't know it, but the calls were recorded by jail staff, as is routine. Prosecutors filed a new charge and Wick revoked her probation, sentencing her instead to the maximum term for her residential burglary and vandalism convictions.</p><p>Wick chastised True Tuesday for not taking advantage of his initial leniency.</p><p>“She's chosen not to take that opportunity,” Wick said in court as True stood before him in a blue jail uniform. “She's used her last chance.”</p><p>The judge also dismissed defense claims that the probation terms were unclear. In the phone calls, the two discussed the no-contact order, Wick said.</p><p>“I don't think there was any ambiguity at all,” Wick said.</p><p>The sentencing caps the criminal case that began with a tragic Thanksgiving holiday crash at Lakeville Highway and Highway 37 that killed John and Susan Maloney and their children, Aiden, 8, and Grace, 5.</p><p>Police said two days later, True and Gutierrez ransacked the Maloney's house, stealing an estimated $100,000 in property including a car. They were arrested in San Mateo a few days later after True was pulled over in a traffic stop and officers discovered she had Susan Maloney's credit cards.</p><p>Prosecutors said they targeted the house after reading about the crash. Both said they had no idea the family had died. In a jailhouse interview in which he admitted the burglary, Gutierrez said, “I am not a monster.”</p><p>At True's Oct. 27 sentencing, Wick said there was no evidence that the two defendants knew why the house was empty when they entered the home through a doggy door. </p><p>But within hours, True, who was free on bail pending a jail turn-in, got calls from Gutierrez in which she showed a callous attitude about the crime, prosecutor Mike Li said.</p><p>Her profane banter and flouting of her probation terms showed a “Jekyll and Hyde” personality, Li said.</p><p>In one of the conversations they seemed to be criticizing the Maloney's neighborhood as being unsafe, Li said.</p><p>“That's pretty wrong,” Li said.</p>