Former Los Altos resident Sargent Binkley has retained a new lawyer and is seeking to withdraw his no-contest plea to felony burglary charges in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. The charges stem from two 2006 pharmacy holdups.
Binkley has a court date in Santa Clara County Superior Court later this month to determine whether he will be sentenced for the robberies, or permitted to change his plea and resume his defense.
The West Point graduate and discharged Army Ranger was arrested in March on suspicion of robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and possession of narcotics. Mountain View police charged that Binkley, armed with a handgun, forced a Walgreens pharmacist to hand over Percocet, Vicodin and morphine. He has been charged with a similar crime in San Carlos.
Binkley served in Bosnia in the late 1990s and was wounded while serving in Honduras in 2001.
Binkley, facing 15-20 years in jail, had agreed to plead no contest to the Mountain View burglary and serve 12 years, potentially serving concurrent time for the San Mateo County robbery, according to Deputy District Attorney Rob Baker.
The 12-year sentence was based on 1997 legislation that set minimum prison time for felonies committed with a gun.
