Hit and run auto burglar, just released after assault weapons conviction, skates with three-and-a-half-month sentence
A felon whose San Francisco auto burglary spree ended in a multi-car collision during a failed escape bid—just months after his release from prison following an automatic weapons conviction—was given a time-served sentence of three-and-a-half months’ imprisonment today at the city’s federal courthouse.
Josef Atchan, 28, admitted violating his probation terms when he set out to break into cars. The court was told that an SFPD surveillance team spotted him casing and breaking into a rental car. As he drove away he hit a UPS truck and another vehicle with two occupants.
Atchan’s rap sheet features a 2023 conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm for which he received a 31-month sentence and a 2020 conviction for felony hit-and-run and driving without a license. In both 2019 and 2017 he was convicted of firearms possession and given six months and 14 days’ imprisonment respectively.
Attorneys for the Government and defendant bickered this afternoon over whether Atchan ought to be given a time-served sentence of around three-and-a-half months or be made to serve an additional two-and-a-half months for a six-month term overall.
“A roughly three month period of incarceration…sends the wrong message to Defendant and to others: that committing crimes under federal supervised release does not result in serious consequences,” wrote assistant U.S. attorney Emily Dahlke in a sentencing memorandum — while maintaining her position that six months would amount to a serious consequence.
“There is little evidence that deterrence is produced by additional custodial time,” Atchan’s attorney, Jamie Halper, told the court although she conceded that her client’s commission of new crimes so soon after being released from prison was “not ideal”.
“The conduct was quite serious and his history is quite serious,” said U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria this afternoon.
“I am concerned that Mr Atchan is a danger to the community.”
Nevertheless the judge was content to endorse the three-and-a-half month term. He did insist the Atchan wear an ankle monitor for three months and participate in a residential treatment program.
“I will tell you now,” Chhabria told the defendant, “that if you abscond from there, if you cut off your ankle monitor, you will be back here and the outcome will be very different.”
Chhabria’s misgivings echoed concerns he expressed on Atchan’s last outing before him — when he was sentenced in 2023 for possessing guns including assault weapons. At that hearing he was doubtful that a jointly-recommended 31-month sentence was sufficient given the crime’s gravity.
“Given Mr Atchan’s history, the primary concern in this case has to be the protection of the safety of the public – and I am concerned that, given the conduct in this case, and given his history, I am concerned about the safety of the public.”
Nonetheless, then as today, the judge’s expressed concerns did not persuade him to deviate from the course presented to him by attorneys.
The court was told that San Francisco’s district attorney’s office will ask a superior court judge to impose a ‘time served’ sentence on Atchan’s state charges arising from the same incident. That case was ballyhooed by top prosecutor Brooke Jenkins in a press release which noted the case was the first use of a new law – SB 905 – which removed the previous necessity of having to demonstrate that a vehicle was locked to prove an auto burglary charge.
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