Pair accused of robbery spree
The suspects, both ex-college football players, committed a two-day string of heists, police say.
A former USC tight end and a former Louisiana State University player, both of whom were kicked off their college football teams for misconduct, are suspected of staging a two-day string of robberies, including a carjacking, across Los Angeles and Ventura counties, police said Thursday.
Bryce Dixon, a 19-yearold USC student, and Trey Lealaimatafao, 19, are suspected of committing at least nine robberies. They were arrested Tuesday near USC and booked on suspicion of carjacking.
In the crimes that occurred in Los Angeles, both men were charged Thursday with five counts of seconddegree robbery and one count each of carjacking, attempted carjacking and assault with a deadly weapon, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said.
Both pleaded not guilty in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom.
Dixon was ordered held on $420,000 bail.
An attorney for Dixon said prosecutors rushed to file the charges and had a weak case.
“When all the evidence and facts come out, he’s going to be vindicated,” said Joshua Ritter, the attorney. “He adamantly denies it and says he was not involved in any way.”
Authorities in Ventura County are investigating four robberies that took place Monday and Tuesday — one in Oxnard, one in Ventura and two in areas patrolled by the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department, according to the Sheriff ’s Department.
Dixon, who was ousted from USC’s team after allegations of nonconsensual sex in 2014, and Lealaimatafao, who was removed from LSU’s team after an arrest on battery and robbery charges last summer, reportedly met at a football game in 2014.
Los Angeles detectives say the pair committed five robberies in the city, including the carjacking.
Some of the robberies occurred in the Rampart Division area west of downtown, they said.
After one of those Rampart-area robberies Tuesday, detectives were able to get a description of a getaway car, police said. Acting on a crime alert that contained a vehicle and suspect description, Southwest Division officers stopped Dixon and Lealaimatafao in a car on Van Ness Avenue about 1 p.m.
Dixon, investigators said, had borrowed the car from a friend at USC. Police say they found evidence inside the vehicle tying the men to the robberies.
Dixon was expelled from USC in May. However, he was reinstated by a judge after he filed a legal challenge to his expulsion. Though he was reinstated, he was not allowed to return to the football team.
Dixon was investigated for two alleged incidents of misconduct in fall 2014, both involving the same female USC student, who was an athletic trainer.
He was cleared of misconduct for an Oct. 9 incident, but was found to have violated USC’s “affirmative consent” policy on sexual activity on Oct. 23, 2014.
Dixon, in a lawsuit, said the university’s sexual-misconduct investigation process was “utterly lacking” in due process.
Lealaimatafao, a Texas native and defensive tackle at LSU, signed with the university but was kicked off the team in June after three offthe-field incidents. He was arrested on suspicion of simple robbery and simple battery.
A Louisiana newspaper, the Advocate, reported that Lealaimatafao knocked a man unconscious and struck a woman in a bar parking lot.