The woman who was released from jail after allegedly stealing an ambulance parked in front of a San Francisco emergency was arrested again on Sunday, this time for allegedly breaking into a Bayview home while its residents slept.
As previously reported, Judge Charles Crompton granted 37-year-old Veronica Barahona "supervised release" after she allegedly hopped into a San Francisco Fire Department ambulance as it was parked in front of the Ambassador Hotel by paramedics responding to a medical emergency on June 7.
Police located the vehicle (which was equipped with a tracking device) and followed it across the Bay Bridge. Barahona wrecked the vehicle in a fiery crash near Treasure Island, but was uninjured in the wreck, and was detained by police at the scene.
When in court following the ambulance caper, Deputy Public Defender Ariana Downing said that Barahona, a mother of three, was working to get her life in order but recently relapsed into addiction.
Saying that Barahona needed "treatment more than incarceration," Crompton granted her supervised freedom, freedom she lost at around 10:20 Sunday night when, according to a press release from the San Francisco Police Department, she "forced entry through a sliding glass door" of a residence on the 1700 block of McKinnon Avenue, which is about a block from Third Street in the Bayview.
According to the SFPD, Barahona "walked in to the homeowner’s bedroom...The homeowner woke up and began screaming." Barahona "then fled out the back door" and hid in the residence's back yard, where she was discovered by the police officers summoned by the victim.
Barahona, who was already facing charges of felony unlawful taking of a vehicle and unlawful taking of a special vehicle for her alleged ambulance theft, was booked into San Francisco County Jail early Monday morning on one count of first degree burglary, police say. According to a spokesperson with the San Francisco Sheriff's Department, she remains in custody Tuesday morning, and is presently being held on $150,000 bail.
Previously: Alleged Ambulance Thief Pleads Not Guilty, Is Released From Jail