A jury convicted a sex offender for a mall robbery he committed more than three decades ago, according to authorities.
The jury deliberated more than two days before convicting Thomas Loguidice, 67, after a week of testimony before Superior Court Judge Hanley Chew, says a press release from the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office. Loguidice will be sentenced on Jan. 15, in the Hall of Justice in San Jose.
Loguidice faces a maximum sentence of life in prison on top of the sentence he is currently serving.
In 2022, the DA’s Cold Case Unit discovered that DNA collected from the 1994 crime scene matched an offender profile in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). That profile belonged to Loguidice, who was in CODIS after being convicted in 2012 of continuous sexual abuse of a child under 13 in San Benito County, says the press release.
Loguidice is currently serving a 40-year sentence for that case in the California Department of Corrections.
“We do not forget,” Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said. “The passage of time does not minimize this defendant’s violent and horrific acts, and he deserves to be held accountable. I am grateful for the terrific work of our Crime Lab, investigators and prosecutors to bring this perpetrator to justice.”
On Jan. 13, 1994, the 21-year-old female victim arrived at the President Tuxedo store in Oakridge Mall, where she worked as the acting manager, shortly before 10am, authorities said. As the victim prepared to open the store, Loguidice entered the showroom area and forced her into the back storage room at knifepoint.
There, he placed the victim on the ground, bound her wrists, and tied her to a pipe, says the DAs press release. After taking a small amount of cash from the register in the showroom, Loguidice returned to the storage area and sexually assaulted the bound and restrained woman before fleeing on foot. The San Jose Police Department exhausted several leads, and the case eventually went cold.
Loguidice was not indicted for the sexual assault because the statute of limitations for that crime expired in 2000, said the DAs office.
In January 2012, Loguidice, then age 55, was sentenced to 40 years in prison by San Benito County Superior Court Judge Steven Sanders for lewd acts on a child under age 14. Loguidice, of Hollister, had pleaded no contest to four counts of the San Benito molestation charge, along with special allegations he committed the same crime to more than one victim or against the same victim on multiple occasions, according to authorities.
The San Benito County Sheriff’s Office arrested Loguidice in May 2011 and accused him of lewd acts with a child under age 14. Deputies arrested Loguidice after receiving information that he “performed lewd acts” with a girl under age 14, according to the sheriff’s office.
