APPEAL BACKFIRES ON FELON LONGER SENTENCE MAY RESULT.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

A convict who abducted a Lancaster woman, attempted to inject a drain-cleaning chemical into her arm and then shot her until she pretended to be dead will be returned to court for a review of the prison sentence he is serving - which may get longer.

An appellate court denied William Moore's appeal of his convictions for attempted murder and kidnapping, but found the judge who presided over his trial did not impose a 25-year sentence spelled out in state law for a gun charge.

``There (were) both attempted-murder and kidnapping convictions, and each of them had firearm enhancements. The trial court only imposed one and didn't make a ruling on the second firearm enhancement,'' Deputy Attorney General Lance Winters said. ``They are sending him back for the trial court to exercise its discretion to impose a sentence for the additional firearm enhancement.''

Moore, 35, of Carson was an ex-convict when he abducted the victim in March 2002 and, along with two female accompices, tried to force her to tell the whereabouts of Moore's former girlfriend, prosecutors said.

Moore was sentenced in October 2004 to three consecutive terms of 25 years to life after being convicted by a Los Angeles Superior Court jury in his second trial. In the first trial, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury convicted Moore of being a felon with a firearm, acquitted him of attempted torture and deadlocked 11-1 in favor of guilt on attempted murder and 8-4 on kidnapping.

Moore had previously gone to prison in 1988 for a robbery conviction and in 1996 for a drug offense.

In his appeal, Moore argued that the judge in his second kidnapping trial erred in not instructing jurors that they had to agree on which act - attempting to inject the Drano or shooting the woman three times - constituted attempted murder.

But the three-judge appellate panel said the prosecutor had made it clear that the act of repeatedly shooting the woman was the basis for the attempted-murder charge.

After she tried to call the ex-girlfriend on a cell phone but couldn't reach her, the victim was driven to an isolated spot near the California Aqueduct, authorities said. Moore tried to inject her with liquid Drano from a syringe, but failed to find a vein.

Frustrated, Moore threw down the syringe, took a gun, pulled on gloves and shot the victim, authorities said. The wounded woman ran, and Moore chased her, firing the gun several more times.

Hit in the thigh, chest and calf, the wounded woman curled up in a ball and pretended to be dead. Moore pulled the trigger twice, but the gun did not fire. He kicked and hit her, according to authorities, and then, thinking he had killed her, drove away with the two female accomplices.

One of the accomplices was sentenced to life in prison after pleading no contest to attempted murder, and the other was sentenced to seven years after pleading no contest to attempted torture.

The former girlfriend Moore had been trying to find was later killed in a drive-by shooting in the Los Angeles area, but authorities said her death was not related to the Antelope Valley case.

Karen Maeshiro, [phone]

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com