FROM: Amy Cornell, Public Information Officer (408) 792-2997   CONTACT PERSON: Cherie Bourlard, Deputy District Attorney (408) 792-2519   For release on October 3, 2008   SAN JOSE MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO BURGLARY AND THEFT CHARGES INVOLVING TEN ELDERLY VICTIMS   55-year old Albert Robert Acuna, of San Jose, entered guilty pleas to elder theft charges in Santa Clara County Superior Court this week. Acuna was charged with 13 total counts, in cases that involved at least 10 elderly victims.   Acuna would knock on the doors of elderly Santa Clara County residents and demand to be paid for yard work he said he did at their homes. The type of work he claimed to have done included cleaning gutters, pulling weeds and washing windows. Acuna would sometimes returned to the victim’s home the following day, asking for more money for additional work. In some cases the work was never done, and in others, the work was incomplete. Some of the victims never hired Acuna to do the work, but gave him money so he would leave. One victim alone paid him more than $70,000 over a period of several years for work that was never completed.   Acuna is scheduled to be sentenced to 10 years in prison, of which he has to serve eighty percent, on October 21, 2008, at 9:00 a.m. in Department 24 of the Hall of Justice. ###