By Wheeler Cowperthwaite
Special to the SUN

Probation officers are asking a judge to send Mackie Roybal, 32, back to prison, after he pleaded guilty in 2017 in four cases, including shooting a 3-year-old in the leg in the Wal-Mart parking lot.

Roybal took a global plea deal in 2017 for eight crimes spread across four cases that happened from 2014 to 2016. Then-District Judge Jennifer Attrep sentenced him to 10 years, on May 20, 2017. It’s the maximum under his plea deal.

After a series of violations since his release from prison in 2021, probation officers are now asking that he be sent back to prison for violating the conditions of his release.

Of his sentence, five years were suspended.

“Probationer Roybal has been given multiple opportunities to receive treatment and continues to violate his conditions of probation,” Probation and Parole Officer Santana Suazo wrote in a major violation report. “His actions have shown that he is not willing to receive treatment and does not want the assistance provided. Probationer Roybal continues to use drugs.”

Prosecutor Domenic Giuliano filed the motion to have his probation revoked on Feb. 23, while Suazo filed her report on Feb. 19. He was arrested the same day.

An evidentiary hearing on his probation violations is set for March 23.

Problems on Release

Roybal was originally released from prison on Nov. 22, 2021 and then sent back after being arrested on a drunk driving charge. Prosecutors did not pursue that charge because the parole board sent him back to prison, Suazo wrote.

He was released again on Oct. 23, 2023, and doing fine until May 2024, when he allegedly tested positive for cocaine and fentanyl, and was told to go to a 30-day inpatient program, Suazo wrote.

He was staying on the streets by June 2024, as his mother didn’t get along with his girlfriend, and later ran away from probation officers when he saw them approach the homeless shelter he was staying, she wrote.

Prosecutors filed to have him arrested for violating his probation on Julu 11, 2024. He was arrested on that bench warrant on Sept. 19, 2024 and appears to have been released on Oct. 21, 2024. Another petition to revoke was then filed on Jan. 29, 2025, he was arrested within days and released on April 1, 2025. Prosecutors filed another petition to revoke his probation on June 16, 2025 and he appears to have been arrested promptly and released on Sept. 15, 2025, before being arrested again most recently on Feb. 19, 2026, according to online court records.

A drug test on Jan. 2 was positive for cocaine and marijuana, Suazo wrote.

The latest series of problems stems from attempts to get him into treatment, Suazo wrote. In December 2025, he missed six appointments at the treatment center, telling staff, “go (expletive) yourself, (expletive) bitch, I don’t care if I get violated,” Suazo wrote.

Roybal allegedly refuses to go to treatment, she wrote.

“Probationer Roybal was informed he needed to get into an inpatient treatment program and states he is not going to go every time PPO S. Suazo brings up treatment and shuts down,” she wrote. “Probationer Roybal was referred to Serna Solutions for mental health and has failed to report. Probationer Roybal states he is going to abscond if Probation and Parole makes him goes into treatment.”