Lakeport man gets 38-years-to-life for 2016 Windsor armored car holdup

A 25-year-old Lakeport man was sentenced to 38-years-to-life in prison Monday for armed robbery and attempted murder in a 2016 holdup of an armored truck outside a Windsor bank where he shot a Loomis guard multiple times with an assault weapon.

Ivan Morales was found guilty by a Sonoma County Superior Court jury in January. The case had been delayed as two of the jurors lost homes in the October fires.

Morales’ accomplice and childhood friend Sergey Gutsu, 26, of Antelope, pleaded no contest in December to armed robbery and attempted murder of a Calistoga police officer. He was sentenced to 51-years-to-life in January and is imprisoned at California State Prison, Corcoran.

The two men robbed the Loomis truck July 12, 2016 ,while it was parked in front of a Chase Bank in the Lakewood Village shopping center.

Morales emerged from a stolen Suzuki SUV driven by Gutsu that had been carjacked in Sacramento a few days earlier, the District Attorney’s Office said. He shot the 55-year-old armored truck guard multiple times with an AK-47 style rifle.

Gutsu grabbed a bag containing $30,000 in cash and the two sped off, switching cars down the street to another SUV before fleeing east to Calistoga.

Calistoga police officer Luis Paniagua spotted the pair and began following them. Gutsu stopped the SUV, jumped out and shot at Paniagua. The officer then smashed his cruiser into Gutsu, who was injured and taken into custody. Morales fled on foot but was found three hours later by Sonoma County sheriff’s deputies in a multiagency manhunt.

Gutsu also is suspected of other crimes throughout California, including the 2015 murder of a San Dimas sandwich shop owner.

He is expected to be tried for that crime.