Share
Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
FORT WORTH — A brother and sister from Arlington have each been sentenced to 25 years in prison after pleading guilty to several robberies and burglaries — two of which they committed together last year.
According to Assistant District Attorney Alicia Cooper, Serena Rojas was on deferred-adjudication probation from a 2006 burglary case when she and her brother, Santana Rojas, were arrested in July 2008 after an Arlington homeowner interrupted them inside his home. Santana Rojas hit the resident in the face as they ran off.After they were arrested in that burglary, police linked them to an aggravated robbery that had occurred two days earlier. In that case, witnesses told police that the pair, wielding shotguns, burst through the door of an Arlington home, tied up three people and took their jewelry, Cooper said.The robbers wore bandannas, but witnesses said a woman with a ponytail drove the getaway car. Santana Rojas was also charged with the July 23 robbery of a man he approached in his garage and struck with a gun during a struggle, Cooper said.Last week, state District Judge Wayne Salvant sentenced Serena Rojas, now 24, to 25 years in prison in the aggravated robbery and 20 years each in the home burglary and, after revoking her probation, the 2006 burglary. The sentences will be served concurrently, Cooper said.Santana Rojas, now 17, was sentenced to 25 years each in the two aggravated robberies and 25 years in the burglary. Although 20 years is the maximum for burglary of a habitation, the judge was allowed to exceed that because Rojas served time in the Texas Youth Commission on a juvenile burglary conviction, Cooper said. He will serve the sentences concurrently.MARTHA DELLER, 817-390-7857
@Nyx.CommentBody@