A Yolo County jury on Friday found 34-year-old Joey Alfredo Lopez guilty of committing armed robbery.
Alfredo, a Woodland resident, has a past strike for robbery on his record. On Aug. 16, he’ll face up to 31 years in prison when Judge Paul Richardson sentences him.
On June 20, 2012, Lopez, a Woodland resident, burst into the Cigarette Stop at 825 East St., brandishing a shotgun at the store’s owner and an acquaintance, and demanding money. Lopez ordered one victim to the ground; the store owner emptied the register.
Lopez hid his face from a security camera with a Raiders hat. Long sleeves covered his arm tattoos. But because he was wearing shorts, one of the victims spotted a tattoo on his calf, according to the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office.
Before leaving, Lopez snagged shirts from a display.
Less than a day later, Lopez — still in the same hat and long-sleeved shirt — passed a note to the teller of River City Bank in Natomas. He got away with more than $1,000 in cash.
Police pieced together enough leads to track Lopez down at a Sacramento home on Florin Mall Drive. They found him sporting the shorts seen in the Cigarette Stop surveillance footage. Inside the residence, officers found both a shirt matching one taken from the store and a shotgun matching the one wielded during the robbery.
Said Deputy District Attorney Sulaiman Tokhi, who prosecuted the case, “Lopez brazenly put a shotgun in the faces of two innocent citizens, robbing one who was just trying to run his business. But for the excellent work of members of the Woodland and Sacramento police departments, Lopez might have gotten away with it.”