BROTHERS GET 24 YEARS EACH FOR BREAK-INS PAIR ADMIT GANG TIES, ORDERED TO PAY RESTITUTION.

Byline: KAREN MAESHIRO Staff Writer

Two Palmdale brothers were each sentenced Friday to 24 years in prison for a string of home break-ins stretching from the San Fernando Valley to the Antelope Valley.

Jorge, 21, and Ramiro Ruvalcaba, 22, along with two co-defendants, pleaded no contest in August to seven counts of residential burglary after prosecutors agreed to dismiss dozens of other counts against them.

They all admitted to having gang ties and were ordered to pay restitution totaling $100,000.

Before sentencing in Los Angeles Superior Court, the brothers each asked to withdraw their pleas but those requests were denied by the judge, court officials said.

Co-defendants Salvador Perez, 24, and Ricardo Nunez, 29, also of Palmdale, also received sentences of 24 years in prison.

Four other defendants entered pleas to other charges and have already been sentenced to terms ranging from 16 months to four years in prison, prosecutors said.

Among the last of the break-ins came in January 2005 in an Acton home, where the homeowner called 911 from under a bed as she heard one of the intruders say, ``If anything moves, shoot it,'' prosecutors said.

The intruders didn't hear her and drove off with loot, including her sport utility vehicle.

The defendants faced 68 counts, including residential burglary, auto theft, arson and fraudulently using stolen credit cards. More than half of the charges were gang conspiracy counts.

The arson counts refer to the torching of the Acton victim's SUV in Santa Clarita, a blaze that spread to another vehicle, prosecutors said. Authorities said it was an attempt to destroy evidence.

Nunez and another man were arrested two days after the Acton burglary, at the end of a 48-mile chase from Lancaster to Sylmar.

Authorities said a search of a Lancaster home and a Palmdale storage locker turned up hundreds of pieces of stolen property, including passports, driver's licenses, checkbooks, leather jackets, watches, mobile phones, portable disc-jockey equipment and computers.

Sheriff's deputies said the property appeared to have been stolen in dozens of home burglaries, car burglaries and robberies to pay for drugs.

The chase occurred after a Los Angeles County housing inspector went to a home in Lancaster to check complaints that the occupants were involved in narcotics.

The inspector, who was called because the tenant received a federal Section 8 rent subsidy, spotted items that appeared to be stolen, deputies said.

As deputies attempted to get a search warrant to enter the home, the suspects drove up in a truck -- but sped off after they spotted the deputies, officials said.

The burglars tossed methamphetamine, counterfeit money and forged checks out of their truck during the chase, deputies said.

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com

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