Full Opinion

Filed 11/4/26 P. v. Bordelon CA1/1 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION ONE THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, A174604 v. JOHNATHAN RAMONE (Contra Costa County BORDELON, Super. Ct. No. 04-22-00908) Defendant and Appellant. MEMORANDUM OPINION1 Defendant Johnathan Bordelon appeals from a trial court order requiring him to pay approximately $7,000 in victim restitution for a car he stole and crashed. His sole claim on appeal is that the court wrongly calculated the award based on the low end of the car’s fair market value without accounting for other factors that potentially further reduced its value. We affirm. 1 We resolve this case by a memorandum opinion in accordance with California Standards of Judicial Administration, section 8.1. I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND As this appeal involves the calculation of restitution, we need only briefly recite the underlying facts. Early on the morning of September 25, 2022, a driver of a 2012 Honda Civic EX (the victim) and her passenger arrived at the parking lot of a Denny’s restaurant. Bordelon forced the two out of the car at gunpoint and then drove away in it, taking with him the victim’s and passenger’s possessions (including two iPhones, a purse, a wallet, and cash). An hour later, Bordelon robbed a convenience store at gunpoint. A high-speed police chase ensued, which ended when he crashed the victim’s car into a highway median. In October 2022, Bordelon was charged by information with multiple felonies, including carjacking and second degree robbery.2 Nearly two years later, in July 2024, he pled no contest to one count of second degree robbery and an enhancement for personally using a firearm in exchange for an eight- year prison sentence.3 The following month, the trial court imposed the negotiated sentence, composed of the aggravated term of five years for the robbery and the mitigated term of three years for the firearm enhancement. 2 All statutory citations are to the Penal Code.Bordelon was charged with carjacking under section 215, subdivision (a), two counts of second degree robbery under section 211, one count of attempted second degree robbery under sections 211 and 664, and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm under section 29800, subdivision (a)(1). All of the counts except the firearm-possession count were accompanied by allegations that he personally used a firearm under section 12022.53, subdivision (b). 3 Bordelon was convicted of second degree robbery under section 211, and the firearm enhancement was amended to be under section 12022.5, subdivision (a). He also admitted as an aggravating factor under California Rules of Court, rule 4.421(b)(4) that his convictions were of increasing seriousness. 2 After sentencing, the prosecution sought restitution to compensate the victim for her wrecked car, which could not be repaired, arguing that she was “entitled to the replacement of her vehicle with one that is similar.” It provided documentation that the “Kell[e]y Blue Book reveals a fair market range of $6,958 to $9,267 for a 2012 Honda Civic EX with a typical listing price of $8,973.” According to the prosecutor, the victim wanted $15,000 in restitution because she spent that much to replace her car with a similar one. In response, Bordelon argued that the victim was entitled only to the “value of the car as it was at the time of the incident.” He claimed the value was $3,720 because the car was already damaged before the crash, had over 200,000 miles on it, and was subject to a “salvage title and airbag deployment report.” He based his proposed valuation on a CARFAX “History-Based Value Report” he submitted. A restitution hearing was not held until June 27, 2025. The trial court first rejected the victim’s requested restitution of $15,000, as it believed “the claim for $15,000 well exceeds like-for-like lost property.” The court next rejected Bordelon’s proposed amount of restitution. It found that the $3,720 amount that he was “willing to stipulate to [would] not adequately compensate the victim for like-for-like losses.” Rather than accepting either of these proposed valuations, the court “adopt[ed] the low end of the fair market range for a 2012 Honda Civic EX at $6,958 for the loss of the vehicle.”4 4 The trial court also awarded victim restitution for other losses that Bordelon did not oppose. 3 II. DISCUSSION A. General Legal Standards Section 1202.4, subdivision (f), states: “[I]n every case in which a victim has suffered economic loss as a result of the defendant’s conduct, the court shall require that the defendant make restitution to the victim or victims in an amount established by court order, based on the amount of loss claimed by the victim or victims or any other showing to the court.” The statute further elaborates that, to the extent possible, the restitution amount “shall be of a dollar amount that is sufficient to fully reimburse the victim or victims for every determined economic loss incurred as the result of the defendant’s criminal conduct.” (§ 1202.4, subd. (f)(3).) In particular, “[t]he value of stolen or damaged property shall be the replacement cost of like property, or the actual cost of repairing the property when repair is possible.” (§ 1202.4, subd. (f)(3)(A).) In requesting restitution, a victim must first make a prima facie showing of economic loss incurred as a result of the defendant’s criminal acts. (People v. Gemelli (2008) 161 Cal.App.4th 1539, 1543 (Gemelli).) The standard of proof is a preponderance of the evidence. (Id. at p. 1542.) “Section 1202.4 does not, by its terms, require any particular kind of proof.” (Id. at pp. 1542–1543.) Rather, “[r]estitution hearings are intended to be informal.” (People v. Weatherton (2015) 238 Cal.App.4th 676, 684.) Once a victim has made a prima facie showing of loss, the burden shifts to the defendant to disprove the amount of loss claimed. (Gemelli, supra, 161 Cal.App.4th at p. 1543.) In the case of damaged or stolen property, the defendant can accomplish this by submitting evidence that the amount claimed exceeds the property’s repair or replacement cost. (Ibid.) A restitution order need not “ ‘be limited to the exact amount of the loss in 4 which the defendant is actually found culpable, nor is there any requirement the order reflect the amount of damages that might be recoverable in a civil action.’ ” (People v. Ortiz (1997) 53 Cal.App.4th 791, 800.) “A restitution order is reviewed for abuse of discretion and will not be reversed unless it is arbitrary or capricious. [Citation.] No abuse of discretion will be found where there is a rational and factual basis for the amount of restitution ordered.” (Gemelli, supra, 161 Cal.App.4th at p. 1542.) Applying these standards here, we have little trouble concluding that there was a rational and factual basis for the restitution award. To begin with, the undisputed evidence supported the conclusion that the car had some market value before Bordelon crashed it. The victim was driving the car immediately before Bordelon stole it, and it continued to be operable since Bordelon drove it to the convenience store and then used it during a high- speed effort to elude the police. Furthermore, the prosecutor submitted Kelley Blue Book listings showing the fair market range for cars of the same make, model, and year. These facts provided ample, and certainly substantial, evidence of a non-arbitrary basis for the court’s decision to set restitution at “the low end of the fair market range.” (See In re Travis J. (2013) 222 Cal.App.4th 187, 202–203.) Bordelon argues that the trial court’s decision was faulty because he submitted evidence that the car’s actual value was lower than the low end of the fair market value range, as the car had high mileage and preexisting damage. He argues that the low end of the fair market value range should have been ignored because it was based on vehicles that were not sufficiently similar to the victim’s car, “which had a very high mileage of 211,000, multiple severe damages, [a] title problem due to a reported accident, [a] deployed airbag, and [a] voided basic warranty.” According to him, the award 5 of restitution at the low end of the fair market value range still amounted to a “windfall” for the victim. But this description of the car’s pre-crash condition was never conclusively established, and the trial court was not required to accept Bordelon’s characterization of the car’s condition or his preferred method of valuation.5 (People v. Ortiz, supra, 53 Cal.App.4th at p. 800.) While it is true that the CARFAX report indicated the car had high mileage and was in an accident a few months before the incident, the report stated that the damage was “moderate” and did not address whether any repairs were made. The court was not required to agree with Bordelon’s view of the car’s worth any more than it was required to agree with the victim’s. What matters is whether the court’s determination had a factual and rational basis, and it did. Bordelon separately argues that, even assuming the car had a fair market value in line with what the trial court determined, the court was obligated to “subtract the salvage value of the car” from the restitution award. The argument is meritless. The primary case on which he relies, People v. Sharpe (2017) 10 Cal.App.5th 741, is distinguishable. The Sharpe victim kept and repaired the damaged vehicle, and the appellate court indicated that restitution based on a decrease in fair market value should account for the salvage value. (Id. at pp. 745–746.) Here, in contrast, the victim was obligated to replace the car, and the trial court’s award reflected an apparent attempt to compensate the victim for the replacement cost of a similar vehicle. Bordelon identifies nothing in the record establishing that 5 In the trial court, Bordelon claimed the victim’s car had a lower value than the fair market value because it had a salvage title at the time it was wrecked. But as he acknowledges on appeal, the evidence actually showed that the salvage title was issued after he crashed the car. 6 the victim kept the vehicle he stole and crashed, and the court was not obliged to reduce the restitution award by the salvage value of property the victim no longer possessed. III. DISPOSITION The June 27, 2025 order awarding victim restitution to the car’s owner is affirmed. 7 _________________________ Humes, P. J. WE CONCUR: _________________________ Banke, J. _________________________ Langhorne Wilson, J. People v. Bordelon A174604 8