Contact:    Brent Nibecker, Deputy District Attorney

    (805) 654-5186

District Attorney Gregory D. Totten announced today that Larry Eugene Barkley (DOB 11/26/73) of Ventura, was sentenced to a term of 30 years to life in prison for the willful, deliberate and premeditated attempted murder of Anthony Ornelas. Barkley was sentenced pursuant to California's Three Strikes Law to a term of 25 years to life in prison, with an additional five years added to his sentence because this offense and prior offenses were violent felonies. Barkley had previously been convicted of two counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm stemming from a 1997 incident where he fired a handgun at a group of young men.

The attack in this case occurred on September 20, 2008, inside a parked vehicle. Barkley was seated in the rear passenger seat while Mr. Ornelas was seated in the front passenger seat. Using the victim's seatbelt, Barkley pinned him in place and then cut his throat with a large fixed-blade knife after Mr. Ornelas refused to supply him with drugs.

On July 8, 2009, a jury found Barkley guilty of the willful, deliberate and premeditated attempted murder of Anthony Ornelas. Barkley was also convicted of one count of committing assault with a deadly weapon arising from the same incident. The jury found true a special allegation that he used a knife in the attack on Mr. Ornelas' life. The jury also found that Barkley had suffered the two previously mentioned convictions for assault with a semiautomatic firearm.