AURORA | A local grand jury has indicted eight gang members on a slew of felony charges related to multiple armed robberies at cell phone stores and a marijuana dispensary in Aurora earlier this year, Arapahoe County prosecutors announced Thursday.
Members of the grand jury returned 69 counts, including attempted murder, kidnapping and racketeering, against the defendants from Denver and Aurora, who range in age from 19 to 29. All of the suspected criminals have been arrested, and seven of them remain in custody, 18th Judicial District Attorney John Kellner told Aurora City Council members at a briefing earlier today.
A spokesperson for Kellner’s office said the group robbed more than half a dozen cell phone stores in Aurora, Denver, Highlands Ranch and Westminster between Jan. 21 and March 3 before stealing from an Aurora pot shop on March 15. The group peddled their stolen merchandise online, including on Facebook Marketplace, Kellner said.
In Aurora, attorneys have accused the group of robbing an At&T store, a T-Mobile store, a Verizon store and X-Clusive Cannabis on East Sixth Avenue.
The defendants are: 24-year-old Jermaine Wright, 24-year-old Cartrell Bounds, 28-year-old Kove Davis, 28-year-old Damon Webster, 29-year-old Marrell Jones, 26-year-old Adrian Washington, 20-year-old Hasina Allen-Turner and 19-year-old Jalen Wright.
Wright, who is from Aurora, carries the highest number of criminal charges in the group. He currently faces 47 counts, all of which are felonies. The most severe charges each carry a sentence of up to 24 years in state prison.
The 48-page indictment that would provide additional details on the defendants and the alleged crimes is currently suppressed, a court clerk confirmed.
All eight of the suspected robbers face two felony counts under the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act, a tool police and prosecutors use to take batches of repeat offenders off the streets at one time.
“When you’re talking about an organized crime type of prosecution, it’s not about simply arresting one person for the one-off,” Kellner said. “It’s doing a deeper dive so you can arrest and prosecute a group of people working together.”
All of the defendants have various court dates on the Arapahoe County docket in the coming months.
BLM
How sad. Able-bodied and able to work.
Growing up during the 1950s and 1960s a block away from where Billie kept her horse Patches on an acre of pasture that ran along Havana from 23rd to 25th, just opposite the early Moorehead Park, I felt the usual schoolkid anxieties, rising grade to grade, from Montview to North Junior to Aurora Central. I cut lawns, crawled through the culverts under the runways at Stapleton, caught crayfish in Sand Creek near the County Pen, played Little League and bagged groceries at Fitzsimons, did water safety instruction and life-guarding at the Moorehead Pool. Nearest place to go see gangs in action was down in Denver’s Five Points. Not so anymore seventy years later — all available in the local ‘burb! Snowdon presents an interesting gallery of ink and attitude.
Black lives matter
Play stupid games win stupid prizes they say. Hope they throw the hammer down hard on these sub human excuses for life. Decades behind bars hopefully. Losers.