Colombian sentenced for robbery of jewelry sales rep

A Colombian national will serve 33 months in prison in connection with the 2013 robbery of an employee of a New York business that sold jewelry and gemstones.

Oscar Javier Rodriguez Roa, 36, of Bogota, was sentenced in federal court in Pittsburgh Monday by Senior U. S. District Judge Donnetta Ambrose.

Roa, who was indicted on the robbery charges in Pittsburgh in 2015 and extradited to Pittsburgh in December, pleaded guilty in April to conspiracy to commit the Hobbs Act robbery. The act covers robberies that affect interstate commerce.

The U. S. Department of Justice said Judge Ambrose did not order Roa to serve a term of supervised release because he will be deported at the completion of his prison sentence.

Investigators said that on May 8, 2013, Roa and three accomplices approached a traveling jewelry salesman as he got out of his car in the parking lot of a jewelry store in Pine. Roa smashed the rear driver’s side window of the salesman’s car with a garden tool, reached inside the car, and stole a black shoulder bag containing approximately $ 500,000 worth of gemstones and jewelry.

The men fled in a vehicle that the Northern Regional Police Department later found abandoned. Roa’s prints were recovered from the car,

The Justice Department said records from the Customs and Border Patrol Agency showed that Roa, who is not a citizen of the United States, fled this country on May 16, 2013, by boarding a flight in Houston destined for Bogota.

According to the plea agreement, Roa, who also has lived in Atlanta and Harris County, Texas, was a member of a South American theft ring that targeted traveling jewelry salespeople in the U. S. and elsewhere.

The FBI Pittsburgh field office led the investigation with assistance from the Northern Regional Police Department.