Victims Robbed in Sacramento Only Because of Judge Crompton’s Decision in SF

Mental health diversion failed for serial Big Mac Bandit. Should we be shocked?

Methodically Planned Robberies

For a robbery to occur, the victim must be unsuspecting, and unlike other violent crimes, a robbery is premised on the victim and the perpetrator not being acquainted.  This makes identification of the robber more difficult.  To ensure they are not recognized, robbers sometimes travel more than a hundred miles to plunder.   It is the shock and the complete absence of any relationship with the robber that causes the victim’s permanent trauma.

Imagine that you are a young person or first a generation American working the graveyard shift at a fast-food restaurant—hustling and performing honest work on a food assembly line just trying to improve your family’s life.  It’s 3:30 am and except for drive-up traffic, you feel secure knowing the restaurant is closed to the strange people that sometimes wander in off the streets.

From ABC. 2015, Big Mac Bandit breaks glass door and enters McDonalds

From ABC. Preparing to sneak up on workers

Unexpectedly, you are startled by a large hooded and masked man that confronts you with what appears to be a gun.  How did he get in here?  Is he going to kill me?  The man demands “where’s the big money” and orders you to open the safe, then the cash register.  Will I see my husband again?  Did I tell him I loved him when I said goodbye?  Who will watch out over my children?  He takes $1,200 and disappears into the night.

From ABC. Bandit with gun in right hand, takes the till

From ABC, with gun pointed at the back of an employee, marches them to the safe

Stop imagining.  Here is the actual November 8, 2015, nightmare robbery as provided by ABC Channel 7 linked here

In the video, SFPD spokesman Officer Manfredi warns “I guarantee he is going to do this again and again.”   Manfredi wasn’t speculating, like most of SFPD he knew this was the eighth time the same M.O. was meticulously used in a San Francisco/Daly City takeover robbery series- breaking in through glass and sneaking up on the servers.   It’s unfortunate that Manfredi was able to correctly guarantee Eldridge’s next move, but some of our judges lack the same understanding of human nature.

On February 3, 2016, the Big Mac Bandit returned to same McDonalds as the video for his 19th takeover robbery.  SFPD arrived at the McDonalds to find shaken and crying victims, with one describing the Bandit as having pointed the muzzle of his gun directly in her side.  Vigilant SFPD units followed and arrested Mark Anthony Eldridge- the Bandit- at the Moraga/Orinda exit of Highway 24 on his commute back to his Sacramento residence.  Evidence from the robbery was still in his car.

Eldridge was charged with 11 counts of robbery and 10 counts of kidnapping and was facing a harsh state prison sentence.  Eldridge had an arrest record and sources have told me he previously served a long jail term for robbery.

Eldridge’s public defender stalled prosecution for three-years so that he could build up credit for time served in SF’s soft county jail system.  Finally, a preliminary hearing was held in January 2019 and Eldridge’s public defender asked for him to be diverted to “mental health services” in lieu of prison.  The judge determined that there was probable cause to pursue further prosecution, but more importantly, because of Eldridge’s criminal history, the careful planning, and the gravity of the takeover robberies, he was “ineligible” for mental health diversion.

Specifically, California Penal Code section. 1001.36(b)1(F)) eliminated Eldridge’s eligibility for mental health diversion because he “posed an unreasonable risk or danger to the community.” 

Enter Chesa Boudin as the new district attorney in January 2020.  As a former public defender, Boudin assigned a fellow former public defender, Kimberly Lutes-Koths as the lead DA prosecutor on Eldridge’s case.  In August 2020 the Bandit was again determined ineligible for “mental health diversion” in lieu of hard prison time.

On August 4, 2021, I attended Eldridge’s hearing in Department 15 in what Judge Charles Crompton called “Treatment Court.”  Somehow, despite mountains of evidence, the volume of robberies, ten kidnappings, and approximately 50 victims, Lutes-Koths allowed Eldridge’s public defender’s to assert that Eldridge had a mental disorder and was not a potential threat to the public.  It didn’t go without notice that Lutes-Koths and the public defender were former coworkers.

How could Boudin, Lutes-Koths, and Judge Crompton have accepted that Eldridge, who was repeatedly deemed ineligible for mental health diversion by prior judges because he was deemed still a danger to the public, was now suddenly not a safety risk and thus eligible for mental health diversion?

On August 4^th, 2021, Judge Crompton granted Eldridge mental health diversion which, under California Penal Code 1001.36 (e) fiats Eldridge’s 11 counts of robbery and 10 counts of kidnapping SHALL be dismissed (expunged) as if no crime had ever been committed.

DA Boudin is now gone, recalled by a popular vote in June 2022.  Lutes-Koths, a public defender at heart, quit the District Attorney’s office in May 2022.  Though obviously unqualified to render decisions, Charles Crompton is still acting as a judge.  But the fifty victims of Eldridge’s violent act, must live with their trauma for the rest of their lives.

February 2023

Eldridge was arrested in Sacramento on February 3^rd after he robbed yet another fast-food franchise.  He led Sacramento law enforcement officers on a high-speed chase and had a gun in his possession.  Are you shocked?  It is hard to imagine that Eldridge went straight from Judge Crompton’s court on August 4, 2021 to February 3, 2023, without committing more robberies in between.  Eldridge has his first court date today (2/15/23) in a real world courtroom in Sacramento.

A special shoutout to the believers-Chesa Boudin, Kimberly Lutes-Koths, and Judge Charles Crompton- who imagine that all that career criminals need is an appropriate program, fentanyl dealers are all trafficked, homeless just need affordable housing, and slow streets will end global warming.   For only through their extraordinary efforts and deviation from reality were Boudin, Lutes, and Crompton able to increase the roster of California’s robbery victims.