Santa Margarita man sentenced to 100 years in prison

December 13, 2021

Michael Anthony Brians

By KAREN VELIE

The court sentenced a Santa Margarita man on Monday to 100 years to life in prison for sexually abusing multiple children over four decades.

Michael Anthony Brians, 60, abused five girls between about 1983 and 2016. A San Luis Obispo jury convicted Brians of eight counts of felony sex crimes committed against three of the girls.

The other two victims, now adults, testified during Brians’ three-week trial about him abusing them when they were children. Though the statute of limitations for those offenses had expired, the victims’ testimony was allowed under an evidence code section pertaining to prior instances of sexual abuse.

At Monday’s sentencing hearing, one of Brians’ victims spoke about the damage Brians inflicted on her life, and of wanting to serve as a victim advocate.

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commonsenseguy

12/14/2021 6:58 pm

Good. Glad to hear it.

ghostpepper

12/14/2021 3:23 pm

“100 years to life” and he’s 60. Isn’t that just ‘life’ ? The law always weirds me out in this area.

And yes, I get that you can have multiple life sentences so that it makes it harder or impossible to fight to have the time reduced (you get one life sentence removed and you still have the remaining ones).. but this is just one single life sentence. I’m not sure there’s a point to giving ‘100 years’ as a lower bound on the range.

-4

AllenTheTalent

Reply to ghostpepper

12/14/2021 9:41 pm

Still not long enough.

Downtown Bob

12/13/2021 10:03 pm

What a waste of a life, a shame and disgrace on his family, and a tragedy for the victims. This guy will never have a day in the sunshine again, ever.