By Veronica Miller
WOODLAND, CA – Yolo County Superior Court Judge Peter Williams heard testimonies from the alleged victim, his girlfriend, and a detective in the preliminary hearing Tuesday for two accused.
Both of the accused are being charged with felony 1st degree robbery, felony possession of a firearm, felony false imprisonment with force, and felony kidnapping for ransom. Their bail was $500,000 each.
The victim was the first to take the stand. He recalled that he had known one of the accused for about six years and added he and that accused had a past, including things such as a fight that they had and the loaning of money to help pay for repairs for a bike.
The night of the incident, the victim was going home with a girl whose name he claimed not to know. While he was at this apartment, the co-accused came to the apartment because one of the accused has a connection to one of the girls living in the apartment.
One of the accused, the witness said, had entered the apartment with what the victim recalled looked like a gun in his pants waistband.
Both of the accused then held the victim at gunpoint and hit him in the head several times with an unknown item. They then made him call his girlfriend to get money and said they would release him.
Next on the stand was the victim’s girlfriend. After not hearing from the victim for three days she received a call from him asking for money so that he could be released. The witness stated that she had been looking for him over the three days by reaching out to mutual friends.
She immediately went to the bank where she withdrew the money and headed to the apartment where he was being held.
After getting him out of the apartment, the victim and his girlfriend headed to a bowling alley where they met up with their daughter.
The defense team, including private counsel Rob Gorman and Deputy Public Defender Jose Gonzalez-Vasquez, questioned them on why they had waited to contact the police until hours after the incident.
The witness stated that she had to make an appointment and going to the police right away was not an option—they did it later that night.
The last witness of the day was Erica Lee, a UC Davis Police Detective. She was called to investigate the details of the incident. She had reported that in an interview with the victim he said he saw a firearm on the accused when they had entered the apartment.
She also recalled that the victim had said that he was afraid to talk to the police about the situation that had happened.
She also stated from an interview with one of the people living in the apartment that it was odd that the co-accused were there because they normally would give a heads up before they came and they had not.
Witness Lee added the roommate had also seen the victim with a red mark on his face. The roommate had heard discussions of getting money.
Detective Lee further noted that as a result of the victim report, it was one of the accused who had allegedly held the victim to get back at the victim for selling a laced drug to a woman years ago that caused her to die.
The hearing is ongoing this week.
