Court: Grabbing wife’s phone is robbery, even if it’s jointly owned
Convicted of robbery for grabbing a cell phone from his wife after attacking her, Jose Aguilera argued, through his lawyer, that it couldn’t have been robbery because the phone, which he had purchased, was community property — jointly owned –and he’d intended to keep it only temporarily. Nice try. Upholding Aguilera’s conviction, the Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles said Thursday that a spouse who takes property by “force or fear,” and intends to deprive the other spouse of a major portion of its value or use, commits robbery even if it’s community property. The case dates from August 2014, when Aguilera and Angelica Avila, his wife of