Young felon found guilty of third strike

Barely 23, Tucero Antonio Knippling will never be a free man again. He struck out Tuesday.

A jury handed the young Spokane felon his third strike under a state law that allows no fourth chances for people who commit serious, violent crimes.

Knippling’s third strike came from kicking in the doors of strangers’ homes in the middle of the night to terrify and rob them.

The crime spree allegedly began about 4:45 a.m. April 19 when someone tried to kick in the front door of a home in the 2100 block of East 63rd Avenue. Kristina Ploeger told police she and her husband thought friends were playing a prank until they saw the door’s bent deadbolt.

“Fortunately for the Ploegers, their deadbolt held out,” Deputy Prosecutor Eugene Cruz told jurors.

The jury acquitted Knippling of second-degree burglary at the Ploegers’ home, but not of similar crimes that same night.

Minutes after the attempted break-in at the Ploegers’ home, Knippling and 23-year-old Calvin Jay Washington – who recently pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 7 1/2 years – crashed through the front door in the 3700 block of South Gandy.

Resident Louis Cumming got up to investigate the noise, and Knippling and Washington ordered him to get back into bed with his wife, Angela Cumming.

Washington and Knippling covered the couple’s heads with pillow cases and demanded money. They took Louis Cumming’s wallet and Angela Cumming’s jewelry, some of which was later found at Axel’s Pawn Shop on East Sprague.

Knippling and Washington reprised the crime five nights later at an apartment in the 1500 block of West Seventh. Maria Benavides and her 5-year-old son were sleeping at 2:25 a.m. when Knippling and Washington smashed through their door and robbed them. One of the intruders jumped on top of Benavides while she was still in bed, threatened her and ordered her to put her head under the covers.

Benavides said the thieves took her DVD/VCR player, her telephone and a box of jewelry.

Knippling’s conviction depended heavily on the testimony of a woman who said she accompanied him and Washington on their crime spree. Krista D. Gardner, 34, agreed to testify as part of a plea bargain that calls for her to serve 19 1/2 months in prison – almost eight years less than she could have gotten if convicted as charged.

Assistant Public Defender John Whaley argued that Gardner couldn’t be trusted because the plea bargain gave her a reason to lie, and no one else could tie Knippling to the crimes.

Gardner has not yet made her plea, but Knippling’s girl-friend, 23-year-old Gigi T. Rhea, recently pleaded guilty to first-degree possession of stolen property and, as a first offender, was sentenced to the 17 days in jail she had already served.

Knippling, Washington, Gardner and Rhea also were charged in the April 22 robbery of a man who was beaten senseless and robbed of $160 outside the Top Hat Tavern at 6412 N. Division. Knippling still faces trial in that case.

Knippling’s Superior Court jury convicted him of 10 charges: two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree burglary, two counts of conspiracy to commit second-degree robbery, two counts of first-degree burglary, four counts of second-degree robbery and first-degree possession of stolen property.

Any one of the convictions except the stolen-property count would be enough to force Judge Jerome Leveque to send Knippling to prison for life without possibility of parole when Knippling is sentenced on Nov. 30.

Knippling’s previous strikes included a second-degree robbery in 1999 and a 2002 conviction for a first-degree theft of a Hillyard convenience store, and a second-degree assault on the clerk who tried to stop him. Knippling also was convicted of first-degree theft as a juvenile in 1998.