Roberto Flores admits trying to kill Oceanside cop, just before third trial

Roberto Ignacio Flores, 32, who was convicted by two different juries of the attempted murder of an Oceanside cop, but had both convictions overturned, made a plea deal in which he admitted the attempted murder and he was sentenced to 18 years in California State prison.

He pleaded guilty in February, and was sentenced on March 7 2024.

It was in June of 2017 when Flores drove his car into officer Brad Hunter, a motorcycle cop who had pulled over a driver to the side of the road; Flores was apprehended within minutes, after he abandoned his damaged car at the side of the road. Flores, then 26, insisted on a speedy trial every time he appeared in court, and a jury convicted him of attempted murder that same year. Flores was sentenced to 29 years to Life at the end of his first trial.

Flores’ preferred defense was that he was not even driving the car.

But a California appellate court gave Flores a new trial, finding that his defense attorney should have presented Flores’ preferred defense: that he was not even driving the car, instead of the defense saying Flores mistakenly struck the officer and the collision was not purposeful.

It was in 2019 that Flores’ first conviction was overturned, and a second jury declared Flores guilty of the same charges in 2021, and Flores was sent to prison again.

In May of 2023, the same three-judge panel in the Fourth District Court of Appeals that overturned his first conviction granted Flores another trial.  

In their second decision, reversing Roberto Flores’ second conviction, the appellate court noted that in hearings for his second trial, Flores objected to appearing by video monitor (during the COVID scare). His pre-trial hearings began in 2020. 

Brad Hunter, the motorcycle cop hit by Flores

In their second reversal, the appellate court judges found that the judges should have appointed a different public defender for Flores. 

In both of his trials, Flores sometimes demanded to act as his own attorney, but he was so disruptive that each judge appointed the same public defender, John Wilschke.  In their written decision, the appellate court judges noted that during one closed-court hearing, in Flores’ second trial, Flores allegedly told the judge that he “would kill” his court-appointed attorney Wilschke if he did not win the new trial.

The appellate court declared that re-appointment of Wilschke as defense attorney for Flores was “an abuse of discretion,” because there was a break-down in the attorney-client relationship. The appellate court declared there was irreconcilable conflict, and the attorney-client relationship became “non-existent” because Flores stopped speaking to his own attorney. The appellate court declared that Flores had a fundamental mistrust of counsel.  And the appellate court ordered a new, third trial for defendant Flores, in May of 2023.

Flores’ third trial was expected to begin next month, in April 2024.  

The third jury trial for Flores was expected to begin next month, in April, when the repeat-felon will turn 33 years old.  Roberto Ignacio Flores, now 32, was brought from state prison and held in local custody, in a San Diego jail, for almost one year.

In the deal, Roberto Ignacio Flores, now 32, admitted purposely driving his car into the Oceanside police motorcycle cop, and committing this crime while out on bail for a previous felony, plus he admitted being a felon unlawfully in possession of a firearm. In the plea, Flores agreed to a “stipulated” term of 18 years State prison.

“It just gives a certain prison term rather than a Life sentence which subjects him to parole board hearings,” prosecutor Watanabe explained the stipulated 18-year term. “He will get out and there won’t be a parole hearing. Not sure when since we can never predict the credits by the prison anymore.”

The California prison website now shows that Roberto Ignacio Flores is in the Centinela prison, and he will first be eligible for parole in seven more years, in December of the year 2031. 

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