COURT REAFFIRMS ROBBERY SENTENCE.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

LANCASTER - An appeals court has upheld the 24-year prison sentence of an Antelope Valley ex-convict who robbed three men at gunpoint as they got into their car in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

Sandy Lockheart, 27, objected that the judge at his robbery trial cited his threat to the victims, his possession of a gun while on parole and other factors more than once to justify consecutive sentences and maximum terms on the separate robbery and assault charges.

``In view of the court's remarks demonstrating the strength of the court's conviction that Lockheart's record and conduct justified both upper terms as well as the consecutive sentence and the existence of ample separable facts to support each aggravated sentence, it appears clear that the dual mention of facts was not determinative in this case,'' the appellate ruling said. ``Thus, it is not reasonably probabl(e) that a more favorable sentence would have been imposed absent any error.''

Lockheart was convicted of two counts of second-degree robbery and assault with a firearm. Jurors also found true allegations that he had used a handgun and that he had prior convictions for vehicle theft and drug possession.

He was sentenced in January 2004 to 24 years and four months in prison.

Lockheart spent four years in the California Youth Authority after being convicted as a juvenile for carjacking. The ruling noted that by the time he was 26, Lockheart had six felony convictions.

The robbery occurred about 2 a.m. Jan. 22, 2002, as three men walked to a car parked outside a Lancaster Wal-Mart. As two of them were about to get into the passenger side, a Toyota Camry with four people drove up.

The Camry's driver, identified later by the victims as Lockheart, pointed a handgun at one of them and demanded money. After getting the money, the gunman started to drive off, then told the men if they looked at him again, he would shoot them.

Five days later, again at 2 a.m., a sheriff's deputy saw a car resembling the robber's car with two men in the front seats. The car led deputies on a chase up to 80 mph for five or six miles, until the passenger jumped out and moments later the car got stuck on an embankment.

The passenger was taken into custody but the driver disappeared. Deputies said they found a pistol outside the open driver's door, and mail in Lockheart's name in the glove compartment. His fiance reported the Camry stolen that night.

Lockheart was arrested in Arizona on Sept. 13, 2002, and brought back to California to face trial. Lockheart testified that he and his fiancee were in Lake Elsinore when the robbery and chase happened.