Prosecutors seek prison for Home Depot theft crew which hit nearly 200 stores in Northern California
Adolfo Duarte Herrera, 45, of Richmond, Wilmer Ayala, 43, of South San Francisco, Daniel Resendiz, 21, and Jose Martinez, 28, of San Leandro, all pleaded guilty recently to grand theft, retail theft, receiving stolen property, and conspiracy. The four were arrested on April 29 following a major law enforcement operation that also raided a storage facility in South San Francisco and homes in Richmond, San Leandro, and South San Francisco.
According to the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office, the men stole $65,000 worth of merchandise from January through April from Home Depots in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, Sacramento, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma, and Yolo counties. In many cases, the same stores were hit multiple times, including a Home Depot in Emeryville robbed 24 times.
The DA's Office said their modus operandi was to walk in, steal items, and walk out, sometimes striking multiple stores on the same day across county lines. They would then resell the stolen goods at Bay Area flea markets, prosecutors said.
During a news conference outside Santa Clara County Hall of Justice on Wednesday, District Attorney Jeff Rosen said their sentencing scheduled for Wednesday had been put off to a later date after the court had previously indicated a potential probation sentence.
These are not shoplifters," Rosen said. "This is a determined, destructive and dangerous thieving crew of individuals."
He added, "We believe these individuals deserve prison. Retailers, large and small, mom and pops, large, national chains, they say these individuals should receive prison. Really, our whole community says these individuals should receive prison."
Rosen said the men were prosecuted using a new law that went in effect in January, AB 1779, that allows for a single local district attorney's office to prosecute crimes that take place across county lines.
"When we heard about this thieving crew who had committed crimes all over the Bay Area and beyond, we knew this was the perfect case to use this new legal tool," Rosen said.
Rosen said one defendant, Duarte Herrera, was not only on probation for previous Home Depot thefts, but he also called in sick for a scheduled probation check-in on a day when he was again stealing from Home Depots in Napa and Sonoma counties.
"That screams prison," said Rosen. "Probation hasn't worked. You're not taking any of this seriously, we need to protect the public, and you need to go to prison," Rosen said.
Rosen said the county probation department recommends six years in prison for Duarte Herrera and five years prison for Ayala, who Rosen said are the most culpable in the case.
"I think those are appropriate sentences," said Rosen.
Sentencing would likely be scheduled sometime in the next several weeks, Rosen said.
"I'm encouraged that the sentencing will be put off for some time in order for a more appropriate sentence to be given," he said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Washington Post
5 minutes ago
- Washington Post
What's wrong with men? A writer looks at Michael Douglas characters for clues
In the late 1980s and early '90s, Michael Douglas starred in several Hollywood blockbusters that gave a sensationalist twist to the era's culture wars over women's status and control of their bodies. In 'Fatal Attraction,' he played a family man who betrayed his lovely homemaker wife for a brief affair with a sexually liberated, irresistibly seductive and ultimately deranged career woman. In 'Basic Instinct,' he portrayed a down-on-the-heels detective whose fragile recovery from addiction and personal tragedy was cruelly derailed by a sexually voracious, demonically smart, wealthy and beautiful woman writer, who was also — maybe! — an icepick-wielding man-murderer. And in 'Disclosure,' he was a hardworking husband and father who lost an important promotion to a sexually predatory, professionally undeserving, vindictively scheming ex-girlfriend, who falsely accused him of sexual harassment. Meanwhile, in Kansas, Jessa Crispin was growing up in a small, conservative town, where HBO — 'decadent' for that place and that time — was bringing her movies that taught her all about money and success, ambition and 'the killer instincts' she'd need to thrive in a life far away from home, she writes in 'What Is Wrong With Men.' She saw Michael Douglas as a 'real man.' Three decades and several books later — most recently, 'My Three Dads: Patriarchy on the Great Plains' — Crispin decided it was time to look at him, and at real men, through a new lens. She couldn't have chosen a better moment. The worst elements of the very trashiest Michael Douglas movies — the blatant misogyny, the normalization of sexual assault, the general sense that good men can't say or do what they want or tell the honest truth while women get away with murder — are back in full force. Those sentiments help win elections, animate internet comedy and fill a very noisy manosphere, and they have given cover to sweeping rollbacks of federal rules aimed at fighting sexual harassment and rape, lack of access to birth control, and wage inequality, all in the name of combating 'gender ideology extremism.' Just last month, Amazon MGM Studios' United Artists announced the news of an 'anti-woke' reboot of 'Basic Instinct,' with an enthusiastic sign-on by the film's original screenwriter, Joe Eszterhas, who has been a Donald Trump supporter. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) It's not hard to trace the style of today's particularly rageful male dysphoria to the cultural moment — captured so encyclopedically in Susan Faludi's 1991 bestseller, 'Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women,' and 1999 follow-up, 'Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man' — that made Michael Douglas a box office superstar. Crispin has done it through a close reading — a very, very close reading — of nine Michael Douglas films, arguing that through him, or more precisely, through 'the character he embodied in film during the era of the patriarchy's most dramatic changes … and from his movements and his injuries we can theorize what is wrong with men.' She hops through the familiar touch points in our recent economic history: deindustrialization, banking deregulation, financialization, privatization and vastly increased inequality, weaving them into a sweeping story of declining male fortunes. She views all of that — fiction and history — through a lens of Marxist-feminist critical theory, to which she adds some recent ideas and language from social justice movements. And then she comes to some striking conclusions: Patriarchy is 'over.' 'Postpatriarchy' — in which we now live — is 'worse.' That's because patriarchy, in which 'the top positions' were 'reserved exclusively for white men,' at least carried with it 'values like stewardship, sacrifice, and charity,' she writes; postpatriarchy cares only about money, and its smoke screen, 'meritocracy,' is a 'system that gives advantage to the already wealthy and has allowed the middle class to erode and protections for the lower classes to disappear.' In such a stark world of winners and losers, most men are, understandably, very angry. But, Crispin writes, there is hope: If they could just give up their old 'internalized ideas about male privilege and patriarchal power,' if they would 'learn to become creators, artists, innovators, collaborators and diplomats,' men could, at long last, find 'true liberation.' You may have questions. In fact, you might take issue with quite a few of Crispin's assertions: Was the period before, during and after World War II really 'American patriarchy's golden age,' given male job losses in the Great Depression, the violence men encountered in Europe and Japan, and the return to a home front that had, in many ways, moved on without them? (And, for that matter, is it really truthful to say that the 'fantasy' of 'the brave, heroic young men who liberated Europe and the Pacific was mostly manufactured by Hollywood'?) Is it accurate to assert that angry men flock to overtly misogynistic masculinity influencers such as Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson because they 'are picking up on nostalgic versions of masculinity in order to fight against the hedonism and meaninglessness of contemporary consumer life?' And is it right to describe one of the 'broadest bases of new support for Trump' as 'the disappointed. The middling. The people for whom things worked out okay but not to their full expectations … the third best salesperson this quarter. The students who didn't quite get into the university that was their first choice?' (Do exit polls now ask about job performance and college placement? Or is this just gratuitous?) But you can't get too caught up in all that. In 'What is Wrong With Men,' Crispin is employing the tools of critical theory, and by doing theory, she can cover a lot of bases just by writing knowingly about 'patriarchy' and 'capitalism' and 'patriarchal capitalism.' The author, previously, of 'Why I am Not a Feminist,' she is also a professional contrarian, which pretty much means she can bounce off others to naysay whenever so moved. That dual orientation allows her to construct bizarrely telescoped timelines, without too much worry about anachronism. (Or sourcing: In her extremely short bibliography, Crispin mentions 'Backlash' but, oddly, skips 'Stiffed.') She also avoids any real detail on current politics or policy or political figures; Trump gets his most sustained attention as an example of a late-1980s man successfully 'controlling the narrative' during his divorce from his first wife, Ivana. But then, that's Crispin's theory in action: Anything that 'keeps the focus on the individual, rather than on the system that created them,' is a no-no. With its elevation of rhetoric over well-informed argument, 'What Is Wrong With Men' is truly a book for our times. It will no doubt appeal to the kinds of young readers who talk fluently about 'late capitalism' and who see traditional politics as pointless. It may also provide new fuel for those who view intellectuals as out-of-touch super-ideologues, ignorant and disdainful of regular people. That's not terribly helpful — and it's undoubtedly not the outcome that Crispin desired. Judith Warner's most recent book is 'And Then They Stopped Talking to Me: Making Sense of Middle School.'
Yahoo
32 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Football shop says thefts left them 'unsettled'
Volunteers at a football merchandise shop said they were left "unsettled" after shirts were stolen from their premises. On the Stall City, which donates its profits to Norwich City's charity, The Community Sports Foundation, said it had seen about seven of the team's shirts go missing from its shop in the city centre. Norfolk Police confirmed it was investigating several items which had been stolen from a business in The Forum. Stall manager Andy Bowles said: "When someone has come in and actually defiled us, it feels really unsettling." The thefts were reported to have happened on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Mr Bowles said: "My son Jacob, who we actually run the shop for, is autistic. "We do this for him to get life experience, to be able to work in a proper working environment. "I know it is not the biggest crime, but to us it has been an unsettled week," he added. Previously, the stall's marquee had disappeared at the Royal Norfolk Show in June, after it had blown away in high winds. The shop, which used to be located on Norwich market, originally sold Norwich City surplus kit, but expanded to sell a range of branded leisure and training wear. Mr Bowles added: "When we get shirts in, we sell them and donate them, and our profits go to the Community Sports Foundation, so it is pretty upsetting." He said he believed that some of the stolen shirts "were donated by the widow of someone who died". A spokesperson for Norfolk Police said: "We received a report on 7 August that a number of items had been stolen from a business premises in The Forum, Norwich. An investigation is underway." The store said it had reviewed and improved its security since the incidents, including removing signs so they could see around the shop more easily. Norwich City were scheduled to play against Millwall at 15:00 BST at home in the first game of the new Championship season. Follow Norfolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X. More on this story Mystery as Canary stall's marquee signing vanishes Stall to donate derby profits to rival foodbanks City fans say end of Delia's reign 'inevitable' Related internet links On the Stall City
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Investment funds manager sentenced for fraud, theft that netted him almost $1M
DENVER (KDVR) — A Denver investment funds manager was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to securities fraud and theft in March. On Friday, the Denver District Attorney's Office said in a press release that Jason Lobins, 48, the founder of The Lobins Group, LLC, was sentenced after pleading guilty to one count of securities fraud and one count of theft. Lobins had also agreed to pay $966,045 in restitution to the victims of this case. Viral 'Tea' app hacked: Here's how you can protect your information 'Jason Lobins repeatedly defrauded investors and violated their trust, all for his own financial gain. Today's sentence holds him accountable for that fraud,' said District Attorney John Walsh. 'I want to thank the prosecutors, investigators and victim advocates in my office, as well as the investigators with the Colorado Division of Securities, whose outstanding work brought about the successful resolution of this case.' Between April 2019 and December 2023, Lobins solicited investments from six known victims who were personal friends or acquaintances of his. He, at that time, promised significant returns and provided 'fraudulent reports' of the growth of the victims' investments, according to the DA's office. The victims had, in many cases, said they tried to withdraw investments made and Lobins had responded that he would be sending their money through wire transfer, but never did. The DA's office said Lobins 'walked away' with at least $966,045 and never returned the original investments or possible profits to any of the victims. Investigators had later discovered that the victim's investments, some totalling tens of thousands of dollars, were deposited into his personal bank accounts and spent on personal expenses, which an arrest affidavit said those expenses included rent and credit card payments. In December 2012, FOX31 had reported on a nonprofit called Help Out Not Hand Outs, meant to help veterans in the area. The person behind the nonprofit that was meant to help Colorado veterans was reported by FOX31 as Jay Lobins. Trump's new tariffs go into effect as US economy shows signs of strain In the registration statement for Colorado charitable organizations for the nonprofit, Help Out Not Hand Outs, the documents show that Jason P. Lobins was the registered agent. The nonprofit has the same principal office address on Larimer Street as named in the affidavit for Lobins' arrest in 2022. In 2012, Lobins told FOX31 that 97 cents of every dollar donated would go straight to helping Colorado veterans in need. Help Out Not Hand Outs' charitable organization status expired as of October 2015, according to the Colorado Secretary of State's website, after multiple delinquency notices. The affidavit shows that Lobins used at least 98% of the funds solicited from his victims for his personal benefits, including personal trading accounts, transfers to his checking account, rent payment obligations, personal credit cards, payments to other investors, and payments to the mother of his child. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Sign in to access your portfolio
