A jury decided that the man driving a pickup truck for armed invaders at a drug house on Ridgemont Drive should serve 30 years in state prison.
The jury Wednesday night decided 33-year-old T.J. Bass of Beaumont was guilty of engaging in organized criminal activity. The punishment ranged from 15 years to life in prison. The jury listened to testimony in the sentencing phase and then spent more than three hours to decide the punishment.
The invasion and shootout happened about 9 p.m. December 12 at 3733 Ridgemont Drive. Testimony in the trial tied the men from Houston in the pickup truck to the Tango Blast gang.
Orange Police said four men in a four-door pickup truck drove up to the house. Armed men broke through the front door. The people inside were also armed and a firefight broke out.
A 35-year-old Houston man from the truck died in the front yard of the house. Another Houston man was seriously injured. A man who lived at the house was also seriously injured.
Testimony showed that Bass stayed in the pickup truck during the shooting. He told the jury he did not know the men in the truck were going to rob the house. He said he drove because he owed money to one of the men. Bass admitted to being a drug “mule” and driving quantities of marijuana and methamphetamine from Houston to Beaumont for one of the men in the truck.
Assistant District Attorney Krispen Walker was the prosecutor.
-Margaret Toal, KOGT-
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