Man convicted for 2009 kidnapping for extortion in Marina

A Huntington Beach man was convicted by a jury for his role in a 2009 home invasion in Marina.

In May 2009, 51-year-old Sean Patrick Melody went to the intended victim’s workplace and watched him. When he checked that the victim was still at work, Melody and an accomplice went to the victim’s home. There they forced their way in at gunpoint and took the victim’s roommate hostage.

When the intended victim and a friend got home, they were taken at gunpoint, bound and beaten. Melody hit two of them in the head with baseball bats. One of them had a fractured skull as a result. Melody then forced the intended victim to open his safe at gunpoint and threatened to kill the other two if he did not do what Melody said.

Melody was arrested in October 2012, but was held in Orange County for charges related to a home robbery that happened in December 2007. He was convicted in Orange County during a 2017 jury trial and brought to Monterey County.

After a seven-day trial, Melody was convicted of one count of kidnapping for extortion with bodily harm, one count of kidnapping for extortion without bodily harm, three counts of grand theft of a firearm and one count of grand theft of personal property. The conviction included multiple enhancements for personally using a gun and personally inflicting great bodily injury on two of the victims.

Melody’s accomplice, Brian Zumbado, was arrested in 2012 and sentenced to prison in 2013. A date for Melody’s sentencing has not been set yet.