7 arrested sought pot in robberies, police say
Seven men from North Carolina and Virginia were arrested Monday after invading three Petaluma homes in the hopes of stealing cannabis, the Sonoma County Sheriff ’s Office said.
The men broke into the homes on the 100 and 200 blocks of Eugenia Drive around 3 a.m. Monday, officials said, but their targets were off the mark as none of the homes contained stashes of marijuana the men were allegedly seeking.
This is the second time in about a month that the North Bay was hit by marijuana-motivated home invasions, following two robberies Feb. 8 in Santa Rosa. One of those incidents left a 54-year-old man dead.
“Homeowners in these residences (Monday) were tied up and one was pistol-whipped,” the sheriff ’s office said in a statement. “Thankfully, none of the occupants were seriously injured. None of the residences had anything to do with the cultivation or sales of marijuana.”
Four of the suspects got into a white minivan and led law enforcement on a car chase to Novato, eventually pulling over and fleeing in different directions. One of the men, Ledarrell Javon Crockett, 28, of WinstonSalem, N.C., was arrested after knocking on the front door of a home and asking to call an Uber.
Three more suspects fled in a silver Volkswagon Passat, which was located at a Novato Costco and helped lead to their arrest, authorities said. They were identified as 20-year-old Chrisshawn Denardray Beal and 28-year-old Jaray Day-Shawn Simmons, both of WinstonSalem, N.C.; and Melvin Lamont Corbin, 19, of Richmond, Va. A female suspect reportedly escaped before officers arrived.
The final three men arrested Monday evening — Nakia Robert Lydell Jones, 22; Romello Shamar Jones, 20; and Siddiq Jafar Abdullah, 21 — were apprehended at San Francisco International Airport as they tried to board flights back to the East Coast, authorities said. All are from Richmond, Va.
So, what were they doing in Petaluma?
Sgt. Spencer Crum, of the Sonoma County Sheriff ’s Office, said that investigators believe the men came to the Bay Area “with the express purpose of stealing marijuana.”
The trip, however, was a bust in multiple respects, authorities said, as there was no evidence of marijuana at any of the homes that were robbed.
“We have some evidence that there was some marijuana being grown in the neighborhood a while ago, so they might have had the wrong house,” Crum said.
One man who was arrested in the Feb. 8 home invasion case and a female suspect who remains at large are both from Richmond, Va., according to law enforcement. Crum said the sheriff ’s office is looking into a connection between the two incidents.
All but one of Monday’s home invasion suspects — the lone woman — has been arrested, according to authorities. Law enforcement previously believed another man was at large, but that count was later revised.
The seven suspects have been booked into Sonoma County Jail on $1 million bail, with the exception of Beal, who has a no-bail warrant out of North Carolina for possessing a firearm with a prior felony. They were each charged with robbery of an inhabited dwelling, burglary, false imprisonment, kidnapping and conspiracy.