Pair arraigned in alleged robbery attempt
Two Houston men were arraigned in federal court Monday on allegations that last week they participated in a thwarted robbery on an armored truck courier at a Walgreens in southwest Houston.
A trio of masked robbers reportedly fled the scene in a stolen pickup and police subsequently apprehended them, officials said. Two suspects — Cordares Emmanuel Simmons and Jeremy La-Marque Boniaby — faced a judge Monday in Houston.
A third suspect in the attempted robbery, Brodney Lamar Gardner, sustained critical injuries when he allegedly pulled out an AR-15 and exchanged gunfire with officers. Gardner was taken by Life Flight to Memorial Hermann Hospital.
None of the officers was injured, police said.
The pair of handcuffed and shackled men before U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter
Bray on Monday afternoon are accused of working side-by-side with Gardner in the brazen daylight scheme. Simmons, 31, and Boniaby, 28, pleaded not guilty to matching charges — that they aided and abetted in armed robbery and the discharge of a firearm. The men will be held in a federal detention center until Bray makes a determination at a bond hearing Wednesday morning about whether they pose a flight risk and a danger to the community.
Both men face a maximum term of 30 years in prison.
Bray said during the brief hearing that due to the firearms charge, the burden of proof rests with the defendants to show the court they do not pose a flight risk or a danger to others.
Boniaby’s lawyer, Paul Tu, and Simmons’ assigned public defender, Joshua Lake, declined to comment.
A sworn statement by an FBI task force investigator lays out officials’ account of what transpired on Nov. 1 as Houston SWAT officers lay in wait inside a Garda truck and foiled the robbery.
Police say Boniaby was driving a stolen white Ford F-250 pickup with Simmons and Gardner as passengers. The robbery crew, parked at a nearby car wash, saw the armored truck approaching and pulled on face masks. The Garda truck arrived for its scheduled dropoff, and the Garda driver opened the door to get out before hearing radio chatter that the suspects were following. The suspects’ back passenger door opened, according to court documents.
The robbery crew fled when they realized no one was getting out. Officers followed the stolen pickup in marked patrol cars to the back of a shopping center in the 16100 block of South Post Oak and initiated a traffic stop.