DA: DNA left at robbery, assault incriminates Hayward parolee

The Alameda County District Attorney's Office charged a 22-year-old Hayward parolee late last month with elder abuse and robbery charges in connection with a 2020 attack, authorities said.

In a statement Thursday, Fremont police said a 75-year-old man went to a Newark bank July 6, 2020, where three suspects in a white Chrysler 300 watched him get money before walking back to his own vehicle.

According to charging documents obtained from the District Attorney's Office, the suspects followed the man to his Fremont home, where two got out of the Chrysler and beat him up before taking $1,500 in cash, a Samsung cellphone and a $600 gold ring and driving away.

Officers who responded to the attack found footage on city-owned surveillance cameras of the victim's car driving eastbound along Stevenson Boulevard from Interstate 880 being followed by the Chrysler, as well as footage from a camera outside the bank of the Chrysler following the victim's car.

After learning that one of the two attackers had touched the victim's shirt, officers collected it for detectives, who sent it to San Mateo County's forensic laboratory. Soon after, a lab criminalist found a DNA sample with less than a 1 in 350 billion chance of belonging to someone other than the Hayward parolee. The victim told investigators he didn't know the parolee, had only gone to the bank and back home that day and said his shirt had been clean and washed before he put it on.

After officers arrested the parolee, who had prior arrests on suspicion of at least two Union City bank parking-lot robberies, on April 6, the District Attorney's Office charged him April 27 with felony robbery and elder abuse. He was listed in custody Thursday at Santa Rita Jail in lieu of at least $585,000 bail and facing several hearings Monday at Oakland's Rene Davidson courthouse, according to a county records check.

Anyone with information on this or other possibly related incidents may call Fremont police Detective Jared Madsen at 510790-6932 or email JMadsen@fremont.gov, or send anonymous tips by visiting local.nixle.com/tip/ alert/5788118 or texting TIP FREMONTPD followed by a short message to 888777.