"The plumber touched me" defense

On June 16, a San Diego judge ordered six years in prison for a young man convicted of robbing his employer at an ATM machine, after a dispute over pay more than a year ago.

A jury declared Bryan Paul Jeffries, 30, guilty of robbery and false imprisonment and making a criminal threat at the conclusion of their deliberations on May 14.

Jeffries took the witness stand during trial and claimed that his employer touched him inappropriately after he fell asleep on a couch in his employer's home in December 2012.

Jeffries demanded to be paid for work, and the two men had a disagreement. Victim Michael Welch, 62, claimed Jeffries forced him to drive to an ATM machine in Carlsbad and withdraw $400 cash. The jury of seven men and five women saw surveillance video from that ATM during the one-week trial.

Welch made a statement before sentencing. He was trembling when he told the judge, “For an hour, Mr. Jeffries assaulted me.” Welch claimed he was punched, threatened, and called a “would-be-killer.”

Judge Sim von Kalinowski noted a “pattern of regular criminal conduct” by Jeffries, who has several misdemeanor convictions, and the judge said he was on probation at the time of the new offense.