Mastermind Sentenced In Sonoma County Home-Invasion Robberies

SONOMA COUNTY, CA — A Virginia-based member of the Crips gang was sentenced Friday for his role in a conspiracy to commit a series of violent armed home-invasion robberies — including one that turned fatal — in 2018 in Sonoma County, federal authorities said.

Aaron McArthur — also known as "Gangster Boogie," "G Boogie," "Boogie" or "Suave" — was handed a 15-year sentence in federal prison and was ordered to pay more than $20,000 in restitution to the victims, officials said Friday in a news release.

McArthur, 31, of Virginia, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy in April. According to his plea agreement which was unsealed in the case Friday, McArthur admitted that in January 2018, he and others began planning the Northern California home-invasion robberies.

McArthur, who has remained in federal custody since his arrest in August 2019 in Virginia, admitted in the plea agreement that he recruited two groups of co-conspirators in his home state of Virginia who agreed to travel to NorCal to meet up with more co-conspirators.

In his plea agreement, McArthur admits he told his recruits that he'd coordinated previous home-invasion robberies with a contact in California and that the guns and marijuana were shipped to him in Virginia.

The plea agreement describes how four co-conspirators traveled from Virginia to California and, along with a co-conspirator in California, carried out the first pair of robberies on Feb. 8, 2018, in Santa Rosa.

Around 4:20 a.m. that day, the masked robbers armed with guns kicked in the door of a home and demanded money and marijuana from the residents. One of the suspects hit one of the residents with a pistol, shot another resident in the arm, and stole several pounds of marijuana.

Later the same morning, the robbers invaded a second home, shot and killed one of the residents, and stole several guns.

Four of the co-conspirators were captured later that same day. The fifth was captured about four months later.

The second pair of robberies took place about a month later, McArthur admitted.

Around 3 a.m. on March 12, 2018, his recruits from Virginia entered a home on Eugenia Drive in an unincorporated area of Petaluma where they struck and tied up a resident and searched the place for weed and cash.

McArthur admitted he assigned one of the co-conspirators to take the lead and maintain constant communication with him leading up to the home -invasion robberies.

After leaving that home, the co-conspirators broke into a second house on Eugenia Drive, tied up the resident and again demanded money and marijuana. When the robbers encountered a neighbor, that person was brought inside, tied up and struck several times.

According to the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office, there were believed to be at least eight suspects in the Petaluma-area robberies. Four were taken into custody after a pursuit to Novato and a SWAT search. That evening, three more were caught at the San Francisco airport trying to board a plane back to Virginia.

A little more than a year later, a federal grand jury charged McArthur with one count of conspiracy to commit robbery affecting interstate commerce, one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana, and four counts of robbery and attempted robbery affecting interstate commerce.

McArthur pleaded guilty to the conspiracy count and the remaining counts were dismissed.

In addition to a 15-year prison term, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen also sentenced McArthur on Friday to three years of probation and ordered McArthur to pay $20,275.73 to the victims of his crimes.

An investigation by the FBI, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office led to the federal prosecution of McArthur.