It is going to be a long time before a 32-year-old Fontana man will walk among free society following his October 28 conviction and his November 22 sentencing to 29 years to life in prison for attempting to rob a U.S. Secret Service Agent at gunpoint last June.
Jamonte Fitzgerald Johnson had at least four separate involvements in burglaries and criminal threats in San Bernardino County over a period of more than a decade, netting him four convictions that under California’s three-strikes law should have resulted in his confinement that would have rendered him unable to engage in the act which has now consigned him to prison for a period that will nearly equal or exceed his lifetime so far.
Records show that Johnson was arrested in Fontana for while engaged in burglary on August 18, 2010, and was thereafter charged with felony burglary PC-459, to which he pleaded no contest on January 4, 2011, and was sentenced to 487 days in jail.
On April 19, 2012, he was again arrested by the Fontana Police Department while engaged in burglary in Fontana, and was charged with PC 664/459-F, felony attempted burglary. He entered a guilty pleas to those charges on May 1, 2012, and was sentenced to 365 days in county jail.
He was released early and on April 8, 2013, he was arrested on a burglary charge in the unincorporated area of an Bernardino County. He entered a guilty plea to a felony charge of PC 459 on October 1, 2013. He was sentenced to a middle duration term to consist of an unspecified number of days.
On March 14, 2021, he was arrested in the City of San Bernardino and charged with Felony – PC422(A)-F: making criminal threats to engage in acts which would be likely to result in great bodily injury. He was incarcerated and convicted on March 4, 2024, and given a sentence of 1,460 days. He was apparently released early.
In addition, Johnson has federal convictions for possession of unauthorized firearms.
On June 15, 2024, he was in Tustin in the company of E’shon Dwayne Dodson, then 21 of Compton, and Bertran Claude Bell, 38, of Los Angeles in a gray SUV, which Dodson was driving. That evening, President Joseph Biden, who was yet the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, and former President Barack Obama were in downtown Los Angeles at the Peacock Theater for a fundraiser fro Biden’s reelection campaign. In attendance at the event as part of the security detail was a Secret Service agent who lived in the Tustin Field residential community in Tustin.
Johnson, Bell and Dodson that evening had staked out a spot in the Tustin Legacy, a former military base turned residential development, which is a subset of the Tustin Field 1 residential district, where they intended to stage an armed robbery. The Secret Service agent, driving the federal agency-owned vehicle that was issued to him, pulled up to his home in the vicinity of Stratus Lane and West Wind Drive at 9:31 p.m. As the agent was walking to his front door, Johnson who had exited from the front passenger seat of the gray SUV, approached the agent and pointed a firearm at the victim’s face while demanding his belongings, most particularly, a bag which contained the agent’s laptop, iPhone and service radio. Johnson seized the bag from the agent, at which point Bell emerged from the backseat of the gray SUV, aggressively approaching the agent. The agent drew his service handgun and reportedly shot seven rounds, at least two of which hit Bell. Johnson, yet clutching the bag containing the laptop, iPhone and radio, fled to the vehicle, dropping the gun he was carrying as he did so. The wounded Bell also withdrew into the SUV. Dodson, who had not emerged and was still at the wheel of the vehicle, sped away.
Johnson rifled through the agent bag, which in addition to the laptop, iPhone and radio, contained the agent’s agent’s gun magazines, flashlight, radio holster and lapel pins. Inadvertently, he left his DNA on several of the items. Aware, perhaps, that a feature on the iPhone could be used to track their whereabouts if they maintained possession of it, from the moving vehicle he discarded the iPhone near the intersection of Jamboree and Walnut Avenue and some of the other items in the bag not too far away. The trio headed to Los Angeles, where Bell was taken to a hospital for treatment of his wounds.
The Secret Service agent summoned the Tustin police, who were able to coordinate their operations with their department’s various divisions. In relatively short order, they were able to use the the tracking device contained in the iPhone to locate it and some of the other contents that had been in the agent’s bag. A forensic examination of the gun Johnson dropped was eventually traced to him based upon his touch DNA that it contained. A comprehensive examination of emergency medical care provided that evening led to the identification of Bell as a potential suspect.
Nearly a month elapsed, and on July 11, Johnson was arrested in Riverside by Tustin Police with the assistance of the California Department of Parole. Based upon statements Johnson made while in custody, Tustin police were able to identify Dodson as the driver and arrested him in Los Angeles on July 17, assisted the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department Major Crimes Bureau Burglary-Robbery Task Force. Bell was taken into custody in Los Angeles on July 24.
The latter folded rapidly and before the end of July was ready to plead guilty to a single felony count of second-degree robbery. Bell, who had a prior conviction for attempted robbery in December 2004, came before Orange County Superior Court Judge William Scott Zidbeck in August and pleaded guilty to the second-degree robbery charge, also accepting a sentencing enhancement for being armed with a gun in the commission of a felony. He was sentenced to six years in prison.
Dodson went to trial in October with Johnson. Dodson, identified as a resident of Compton, was found guilty of one felony count of second-degree robbery and one felony enhancement of possessing a firearm during a felony commission. He is scheduled to be sentenced on January 10, 2025, and faces a maximum of six years in state prison.
Johnson was found guilty of one felony count of second-degree robbery, one felony count of possession of a firearm by a felon and two felony enhancements of personally using a firearm. Johnson’s sentencing was increased because of his violation of his federal parole for weapons possession. He was credited with 155 days already served in jail.
“This is yet another shameful illustration of how the failed soft-on-crime polices implemented by the state Legislature and the Governor continue to entice violent career criminals to come to Orange County from other counties for the sole purpose of victimizing Orange County residents,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer. “They clearly haven’t gotten the message that crime doesn’t pay in Orange County and violence will not be tolerated. We will hold these armed robbers accountable to the fullest extent of the law. No one, regardless of whether you are a Secret Service agent or an everyday resident, should have to worry about being robbed at gunpoint in the middle of a neighborhood. Thankfully, the Tustin Police Department with the help of DNA and our partners at the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and the California Division of Adult Parole Operations were able to quickly identify these three career criminals and get them off the streets and behind bars where they belong.”
Senior Deputy District Attorney Ann Fawaz and Deputy District Attorney Billy Ha of the Orange County District Attorney’s Office Special Prosecutions Unit prosecuted the case against Johnson, Dodson and Bell.