A man who was arrested in New York City late last year while trying to flee to South America after robbing a market in Mendocino County was recently sentenced to state prison, the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office reported.
According to the office of DA David Eyster, Matias Tomas Vietto, 22, of Argentina, was sentenced to five years in state prison on May 26. Vietto, who according to Eyster had been working in Anderson Valley “for five months as a field laborer while traveling in the United States on a tourist visa,” was previously convicted in Mendocino County Superior Court “by plea of robbery in the second degree and personally using a firearm in the course of the robbery.”
The crime occurred on Dec. 9, 2022, and the DA’s office describes Vietto as robbing “the Mi Esperanza Market in Boonville at gunpoint and (stealing) $17,000 in cash before fleeing the area.”
Authorities then tracked Vietto to a hotel in San Francisco where he stayed before “boarding an Alaska Airlines flight at SFO heading for New York City. In New York, he was intending to board an international flight at JFK for Argentina, but was intercepted and arrested by the New York Port Authority Police Department.”
The DA’s office notes that Vietto’s “parents in Argentina wired full restitution to Mendocino County to cover the loss of the market owners,” who also provided this written statement to the court: “This was a very traumatic event for us that changed our lives forever. It left us fearful and worried, but we are trying our best to move past this. We must continue working, as our livelihood and our family’s livelihood depends on it.
“Though we will never be able to completely forget this incident,” the statement continues, “we are slowly working towards gaining back our overall sense of security and trust. We send our heartfelt thank you to the law enforcement agencies that investigated this crime, the Sheriff’s Office, the District Attorney’s Office, the Court, Probation, the interpreters, and all those who have assisted us throughout this case.”
As for the defendant, the DA’s office notes that “while being interviewed by (the Probation Department), the defendant reported that the robbery was due to his cocaine addiction. While he had engaged in substance abuse treatment two years earlier, Vietto said the cocaine in the United States is more potent than what he had experienced in Argentina. He claimed to have relapsed in Anderson Valley ten days prior to the robbery.”
View more on The Willits News