Transaction Holdup
RIVERSIDE (CNS) – A 20-year-old man who snatched a Perris woman’s phone and tried to do the same thing to another woman, escaping only after leveling a gun at a witness, was sentenced Monday to three years in state prison.
Adrian Lee Henning of Moreno Valley last month admitted one count of assault with a semiautomatic firearm under a plea agreement with the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office. In exchange for his admission, prosecutors dropped two related charges against Henning.
During a hearing at the Riverside Hall of Justice Monday, Superior Court Judge Melissa Hale certified the terms of the plea deal and imposed the stipulated sentence.
According to sheriff’s Sgt. Chad Thompson and court documents, on the afternoon of Jan. 16, the defendant contacted two 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 said when Henning encountered the first victim, the Mead Valley resident, he tried to grab her cellphone, 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 pistol and took the mobile phone she had intended to sell, Thompson said.
The criminal complaint said 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 Henning as the perpetrator. He was taken into custody without incident the following day in Moreno Valley.
Henning had no documented prior felony convictions in Riverside County.
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