Sales Transaction Holdups
RIVERSIDE (CNS) – A 20-year-old man accused of snatching a Perris woman’s phone and trying to do the same to another woman, escaping only after leveling a gun at a witness who tried to stop him, will ask a judge to consider releasing him on his own recognizance later this month.
Adrian Lee Henning of Moreno Valley was arrested earlier this week following a Riverside County Sheriff’s Department investigation.
Henning is charged with two counts of firearm assault and one count each of robbery and illegal possession of a gun, as well as sentence-enhancing allegations of using a firearm during a felony.
He pleaded not guilty during an arraignment Thursday before Superior Court Judge Melissa Hale, who scheduled a felony settlement conference for Jan. 28 at the Riverside Hall of Justice.
Henning’s attorney submitted a motion for the judge to consider releasing the defendant on his own recognizance, and Hale referred the matter to the Department of Probation for further analysis. The agency’s report is due back by the Jan. 28 hearing, when the judge is expected to hear defense and prosecution arguments on the motion.
Henning is being held on $1 million bail at the Byrd Detention Center in Murrieta.
According to sheriff’s Sgt. Chad Thompson and court documents, on Sunday afternoon, the defendant allegedly contacted two different women, one from Perris and the other from Mead Valley, who had listed mobile phones for sale via online classified ads. He arranged to meet them both at different times and locations that day, investigators said.
Thompson alleged that when Henning encountered the first victim, the Mead Valley resident, he tried to grab her cell phone, but she got away from him, after which he fled.
During the sales transaction involving the Perris resident, identified only as “T.G.,” Henning flashed a semiautomatic pistol and took the mobile phone she had intended to sell, Thompson alleged.
The criminal complaint alleged the defendant then jumped into his car and sped away, but T.G.’s friend, a woman identified only as “D.J.,” observed the robbery and went after Thompson in her car.
“The woman followed the defendant when he ended up in a dead end,” documents stated. “When she blocked the defendant’s car in, he pointed the semiautomatic handgun and told the victim to back up. The victim, out of fear, moved her car and the defendant drove away.”
No one was injured.
The Mead Valley and Perris women both contacted authorities, and detectives soon identified the alleged perpetrator as Henning, who was taken into custody without incident Monday along Moreno Beach Drive in Moreno Valley.
He has no documented prior felony convictions in Riverside County.
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