Community Corner

Millbrae Man Sentenced to 8 Years for Carjacking

Man convicted of ramming his way out of parking garage with stolen car.

Paul Patrick Kirwan, 43, was sentenced on Thursday to eight years and eight months in state prison after a jury found him guilty of using a car as a deadly weapon.

His defense attorney had asked Judge Lisa Novak for a 3-year sentence, while prosecutors requested the 8-year, 8-month sentence.

Novak imposed the prosecution’s requested sentence, with 250 days credit for time-served, and denied Kirwan probation because he is “a menace to society,” she said

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On March 31, Kirwan, who had been released on parole just two weeks prior, approached a woman in a parking garage at 101 S. San Mateo Dr. in San Mateo, and told her to give him her car. She jumped out of the vehicle, and ran in the garage. Kirwan chased her down, and when she fell to the ground, he took her keys and sped away in the vehicle through the garage, according to court documents.

He tried to exit the garage via a one way entrance by ramming another person’s car several times, injuring the driver. He then crashed through a security gate, and fled on foot shortly thereafter as the car was too damaged to continue driving it.

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Police arrested him about a block away from the garage, and found him to be intoxicated and carrying a bindle of cocaine in his pocket. 

Kirwan had to pay the victims over $28,000 in restitution fines, as well as $510 in court fees.


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