NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – A man convicted of the fatal shooting of a Kelseyville resident during a late-night robbery in January 2013 will spend the rest of his life in prison.
On Friday, federal Judge Jon S. Tigar sentenced Jonathan Antonio Mota, 35, of Kelseyville to life in prison plus 10 years for the murder of Forrest Seagrave, according to Abraham Simmons, a spokesman for the US Attorney's Office in San Francisco. The sentencing took place on Oakland.
On July 5, at the end of a monthlong trial and three days of jury deliberations, Mota was convicted of the use/possession of a firearm in furtherance of the Hobbs Act robbery (the Hobbs Act prohibits actual or attempted robbery or extortion affecting interstate or foreign commerce), use of the firearm resulting in murder, Hobbs Act robbery and felon in possession of a firearm, as Lake County News has reported.
Late on the night of Jan. 18, 2013, Mota – a felon with two previous robbery convictions, one of them involving a Clearlake bank in December 2006 – entered the Mt. Konocti Gas and Mart on Main Street in Kelseyville where the 33-year-old Seagrave was working.
Mota was armed, and wearing a dark hoodie and mask when he arrived to rob the store, which had a $200 till, according to court records.
During the robbery, Mota shot and mortally wounded Seagrave, who was unarmed and standing with his hands raised defensively. After the mortally wounded Seagrave fell to the floor, Mota hopped over him and fled the scene, based on court testimony.
Seagrave – a community favorite known for his friendly, sweet personality – died a short time after the shooting.
In an attempt to justify the shooting, Mota would later tell a witness in the case that Seagrave “tried to be a hero,” so he shot him.
Following the shooting, the Lake County Sheriff's Office launched an extensive hunt for Seagrave's killer, with Mota arrested eight days after the shooting on unrelated charges.
Federal prosecutors indicted Mota on weapons charges in February 2013 and transferred him to federal custody in April 2013. In June 2013, he was indicated for Seagrave's murder and the weapons charges.
His trial began in early June, with Mota representing himself at trial with a standby counsel.
A sentencing memorandum filed by the US Attorney's Office on Oct. 21 joined with the case's probation officer in asking the court to sentence Mota to “a term of imprisonment of life plus 10 years, no supervised release, no fine, and a $300 special assessment,” noting that it also was the sentence Seagrave's family wanted.
“The defendant’s heartlessness should be punished by life imprisonment,” said the memo, which also reported Mota's lack of remorse for the crime.
The memorandum made note of Mota's danger to the community if released, the fact that he had spent the “overwhelming majority of his teenage and adult life incarcerated” and that each time he is released, he reoffends, with his parole file containing “repetitive parole violations.”
“And despite two separate robbery convictions resulting in nine and six years apiece, the defendant returned to the very same armed robbery crime in this case,” this time resulting in Seagrave's death, the document noted.
During his time out of prison, Mota also was banned from tribal lands after terrorizing a local tribal community, according to court records.
The sentencing memorandum stated that Mota has “created significant security problems” at the Glenn Dyer Detention Facility in Alameda County where he's been housed since being taken into federal custody in the spring of 2013.
The issues include manipulating his restraints from behind to in front of him while his cell was searched, disassembling an MP3 player and using those batteries and pencil lead as ignition sources, hiding disassembled razor blades in his cell, possessing marijuana in his cell and also starting fires in his cell, prosecutors said.
The document also recounted Mota's numerous attempts to influence and silence witnesses in the case, including a February 2013 jail phone call in which he told two individuals to communicate to people on the rancheria that they didn't need to talk to law enforcement.
He also threatened to kill a female witness, and during trial attempted to intimidate her while she was on the stand. Prosecutors said he even blamed Seagrave’s murder on an innocent man, a homeless methamphetamine addict who Mota and his brother had bullied.
The brother mentioned in that reference in the sentencing memo was Christopher Knight of Lakeport, Mota's stepbrother, a convicted felon with a long criminal history who was killed during a shootout with Salt Lake City Police in March 2014, as Lake County News has reported. Knight is referenced in other sections of the memo as Mota's “equally violent brother.”
“Sadly, at no time before or during the trial did the defendant give any indication that he understands the value of a human life or that he has any accountability,” the prosecutors wrote in the sentencing memorandum.
Present in federal court in San Francisco for Friday's sentencing were members of Seagrave's family, including brothers Nick Wainwright and Christian Seagrave, sister Rebekah Behrens and their mother, Mary Behrens, and Seagrave friends including Kevin Williamson.
Also in attendance was Lake County District Attorney Don Anderson.
Wainwright, Rebekah Behrens, Mary Behrens and Christian Seagrave all gave victim impact statements to the court.
In his statement Wainwright recounted the devastating and continuing impacts on his life and the lives of his family members that his brother's murder has had.
“I find it ironic that his death involves helping another and putting them before himself. He saved his co-workers life. I also find it impossible to say that any part of my life has not changed because of Forrest’s death. Every plan I’ve ever made has been with the notion that Forrest would be alive and well somewhere, at least a phone call away,” Wainwright said.
“I never will forgive Jonathan Antonio Mota for hurting Forrest and for taking the life of our son, our brother, our friend, and for causing my mother, sister, and I so much pain and anguish. I wish that he could completely feel the extent to which he’s ruined our lives,” Wainwright said.
Mota, he said, handed his brother a death sentence and his family members life sentences, and Wainwright asked for the maximum sentence for Mota's crimes.
“This is my brother’s last chance to do good; a strict sentence for Mota has the potential to affect the thinking and actions of others, which could save lives,” Wainwright told the court.
Mary Behrens told the court that she hopes Mota finds God, and that she can be proud to be Seagrave's mother. She said she also prays for Mota's family, members of whom also were in court but did not speak on his behalf.
Rebekah Behrens said her older brother was her best friend, and they did everything together. She said that no matter the outcome, it wouldn't bring her brother back, but she didn't want Mota to hurt anyone ever again.
Christian Seagrave said he has hardly been able to do anything since Forrest was murdered, he's trying to recover from the loss and believes he will be able to do better now.
The family also gave Judge Tigar photos taken of Forrest Seagrave when he was younger and not long before his murder, as well as photos of a plaque in his memory at Kelseyville High school and the signs for Forrest's Road, which is located across from the high school and next to Mt. Konocti Gas and Mart. The Board of Supervisors approved the request from Seagrave's family to rename the street – formerly Douglas Street – in July 2015.
According to Wainwright, Judge Tigar said in court that he didn't see that Mota had a conscience, noting that it's the only time in his 15 years as a judge that he's made such a statement about a defendant.
Simmons said Mota will now be evaluated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which will determine where he will serve his term.
It's not clear how long that evaluation process will take, Simmons said.
As of this week, there are 191,256 federal inmates nationwide and 14,151 in California, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
In his statement in court on Friday, Wainwright asked that Mota be sent to the US Penitentiary in Florence, Colo., known as “ADX Florence,” which houses approximately 416 inmates, according to the Board of Prisons.
Also called the “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” ADX Florence is a supermax prison for male inmates said to be the most secure prison in the country, which also houses the most dangerous prisoners.
It's the same prison where there are housed a number of convicted foreign terrorists, including Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber,” and domestic terrorists, such as Terry Nichols, who along with Timothy McVeigh was convicted of the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April 1995, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who with his brother was responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
How to resolve AdBlock issue? 
