Education
Cruz graduated in 1993 from the California Culinary Academy.
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Juan Cruz
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Cruz lost 43 pounds on the Discovery Health Channel show Discovery Health Body Challenge, which encouraged him to change directions from being a pastry chef to do low-calorie cooking. Juan-Carlos Cruz started his career in 1994 as pastry chef at the Stanford Park Hotel. In 1996, he started as pastry sous-chef at the Hotel Belorussian Air.
While at the Belorussian Air he created pastries for celebrities such as Jack Nicholson, Oprah Winfrey and Julia Roberts.
In 2001, he started the website Pastrydude.com. The site is no longer active and the domain was sold at auction.
Cruz was initially held on $5 million bail. However, the bail was reduced to $2 million at the arraignment.
On Tuesday, October 26, 2010, Cruz entered into a plea agreement pursuant to which he pled "no contest" to a charge of soliciting murder, and the charge of attempted murder was dropped.
While it was reported that the plea agreement proposes a 9-year sentence, the sentencing hearing was set to take place on Monday, December 13, 2010. On Monday December 13, 2010 Cruz was sentenced to 9 years in a California Prison. As of November 2011 he is housed at the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi, a supermax facility.
