Jury Convicts Man in 9 Takeover Robberies at Stores

VAN NUYS —  A man was convicted Tuesday of committing nine takeover robberies at local retail stores and terrorizing employees and customers by taking his victims’ identification and threatening them if they cooperated with police.

Julio Dante Lopez, 22, now faces up to 90 years in state prison after the eight-woman, four-man jury found him guilty of 57 counts of robbery, false imprisonment and threatening witnesses. On 25 other counts, jurors found themselves deadlocked or voted not guilty.

Most of the violent holdups took place last year at Blockbuster video and Petco stores in West Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. Authorities said Lopez worked with other armed thieves who would enter the stores about closing time and herd employees and patrons into a back room, where they were tied up.

Two other defendants pleaded guilty to similar charges in some of the robberies and are now serving state prison terms.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol Fisch said Lopez would confiscate driver’s licenses or California identification cards from the victims and tell them that if they reported anything to the police he would come back and kill them or their families.

“There were many counts to consider in this complex case, but this jury did a great job of sorting out and carefully weighing the evidence,” Fisch said. “Their verdicts take a dangerous predator off the streets.”

In several instances during the 12-day trial, witnesses who had been taken hostage recounted that they were too afraid to return home after the robberies. One stated that when she summoned the courage to go home, she removed the address number off the front of her house. One woman told of how the thieves took a group of employees into a back room and, after taking one victim’s license, turned to the others in the room and said, “You wouldn’t want anything to happen to your friend, would you? . . . So don’t say anything.”

The defendant’s father, Franz Lopez, insisted that his son was forced to commit the crimes by vengeful gang members. “He borrowed $600 from a San Fernando gang member [who] threatened to kill him, his father and his girlfriend,” the elder Lopez said.

Two jurors said they were not convinced by the argument. “If he made the big money in the first robbery, why didn’t he bother to pay them back?” said one juror.

Added another: “He could have gone to the police.”

Superior Court Judge Michael R. Hoff set Lopez’s sentencing Sept. 17.