Aspiring Pro Poker Player Sentenced for Follow-Home Robberies of Casino Customers

LONG BEACH, CA -- An aspiring professional poker player was sentenced Wednesday to eight years and eight months in state prison for following women home from two casinos and robbing them.

Dominick Blair Roberson, 27, of Paramount, was convicted Oct. 31 of four counts of second-degree robbery and one count of attempted second-degree robbery for the series of follow-home robberies -- most of which occurred in October 2015.

Roberson followed three women home from the Hawaiian Gardens Casino, robbing a 50-year-old victim of $1,000 in cash and her purse in Long Beach, taking about $3,100 in cash and a purse from a 41-year-old woman in Westminster and robbing a 51-year-old woman of at least $2,000 at her home in La Puente, according to Deputy District Attorney Brian Kang.

Roberson also followed a woman from the Hollywood Park Casino in Inglewood to her home in Torrance, where he robbed her of at least $6,000 in cash, according to the prosecutor.

The defendant had unsuccessfully tried to rob a Westminster resident after following him home from the Hawaiian Gardens casino and confronting him in his driveway, but the man was able to get away, Kang said.

The prosecutor described Roberson as an aspiring professional poker player who subsequently used money from one of his female victims to gamble at a casino.

He was arrested at a Gardena casino in November 2015.

-- City News Service, photo via Shutterstock