The owner of a Menlo Park jewelry store convicted of hiring a man to kidnap, rape and kill one of his employees because she spurned his romantic advances was sentenced today in a Redwood City courtroom to 39 years to life in prison.Ricardo Zambrano, 38, said little before Judge Thomas McGinn Smith handed down his sentence in San Mateo County Superior Court, other than that he plans to appeal.
"For all practical purposes, he will spend the rest of his life in prison," prosecutor Morris Maya said afterward. "He' s just a guy that's extremely dangerous. The evidence is pretty clear that this is someone who did his level best to torture, rape and murder a woman who did nothing to him except say, 'I'm not interested in dating you.' "
The woman escaped and testified against Zambrano and an accomplice at trial.
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