People v. Hayes CA2/5

Facts Appellant and Mark Wise committed a series of store robberies in February and March 2012. They robbed Radio Shack stores in Granada Hills, Palmdale, and Chatsworth and also an AT&T store in Santa Clarita. The robbers took cell phones and other small electronics, primarily iPhones and iPads. The Radio Shack in Chatsworth had only one employee working at the time of the robbery. The other stores had two or more employees. These robberies are discussed in more detail in section 2 below, discussing the sufficiency of the evidence to support appellant’s convictions for kidnapping for robbery. A tracking device was hidden in an iPhone box stolen from the AT&T store, the last of the four stores to be robbed. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputies were able to trace the device to the Hyde Park Motel on Crenshaw Boulevard in Los Angeles. There, they found appellant and Wise. There were numerous new boxed cell phones in two backpacks found in the room the men were renting. Sheriff’s deputies recovered a computer tower system used for surveillance from a nearby dumpster. This proved to have footage of the AT&T store robbery. Steve Ascencio, Julio Romero and Dean Bennett, who were…