Serial Robber Gets 5 Years For Scotts Valley Gas Station Hold-Up

A 21-year-old man was sentenced to five years in prison Tuesday in Santa Cruz County Superior Court for robbing a Scotts Valley gas station during a spree of 15 robberies in the Bay Area in February 2012, a prosecutor said today.

The judge handed down the prison sentence on Maurice Jenkins for one count of robbery at the gas station on February 27, 2012, after which Jenkins and two accomplices robbed two liquor stores in San Jose, Deputy District Attorney Greg Peinado said.

Jenkins pleaded guilty to the robbery on July 16, after a man who served as his getaway driver agreed to serve as a prosecution witness, Peinado said.

Jenkins took part in a spree of 15 robberies, including the one at the gas station and mini-mart in Scotts Valley, in different parts of the Bay Area in February 2012, Peinado said.

In the Scotts Valley robbery, Jenkins was seen entering the business wearing all black clothing with what appeared to be a firearm and then demanded the money from the register, prosecutors said.

Jenkins and a second suspect who accompanied him stole cash, food and other items and then left the store to get into a car driven by a third suspect and robbed the two stores in San Jose, according to the district attorney’s office.

The next day, on Feb. 28, 2012, an off-duty sheriff’s deputy in Contra Costa County spotted two of the suspects running after they robbed a gas station in Martinez and started driving after them, prosecutors said.

The car chase went past Oakland on Interstate Highway 880 and ended when the suspects’ car ran out of gas on the Dumbarton Bridge outside Fremont, Peinado said.

The suspects later told authorities about the robberies they committed, which included ones in Kensington, Fairfield, El Cerrito, Concord, Berkeley and Hayward, prosecutors said.

Jenkins has also been convicted of robbery in Contra Costa County and grand theft in Solano County, Peinado said.

The case against Jenkins’ accomplice in the Scotts Valley robbery is pending, he said.

--Bay City News

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