An 18-year-old man was ordered Monday to stand trial for hold-ups of people in Chula Vista, National City, and San Diego in a robbery spree that included three other teen-agers.
Ernesto Lamarquez, of Spring Valley, was ordered held to answer on nine counts of robberies that were committed from April 17 to April 24. He is the only adult charged.
San Diego Superior Court Judge Kenneth So asked Deputy District Attorney James Koerber at the end of the preliminary hearing about the status of the three other teens who have been charged in Juvenile Court.
Koerber said his office is considering charging some of the teens, who are 15, 16, and 17-year-old boys, as adults.
Paul Valencia testified he was trying to sell an amp and offered it for sale on a website after taking a picture of it on April 20. He said a young man showed up at his home in Chula Vista at 9:45 p.m. and asked him to follow him to his vehicle where he had the money.
Valencia testified he then saw two other people with guns and someone “hit me over the head with the gun.” He was robbed and later had to get three staples in his head to close a wound.
Jason Ries testified he was walking in North Park at 12:26 a.m. and he suddenly felt “someone put something to my head.” Ries added “it felt like a gun.”
“I was looking down at my phone at the time,” said Ries, who said one man grabbed his Apple i-phone and initially asked for his password.
Ries said he couldn’t remember the password and only then realized there were three other people present in the robbery. He said they all ran after “they took a backpack off of me.”
Ries couldn’t identify Lamarquez in court, but some of his property was later found in the teens’ possession, according to testimony from police officers.
A National City man was robbed on April 22 and lost his wallet. Others lost their wallets in North Park and City Heights.
San Diego Police Detective Richard Escalante testified he talked with Lamarquez after his arrest and he admitted to robbing some of the victims. He said Lamarquez also admitted to attempted robbery of a man in Chula Vista, but the man ran off and they didn’t get anything from him.
Lamarquez and the others were arrested April 24. He has pleaded not guilty and remains in jail on $1 million bail.
The judge set a hearing for July 29 and a trial date will be set that day.
