(Stillwater, Okla.) — A Stillwater teenager who admitted robbing a Perkins woman with an imitation .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol shortly before midnight on Jan. 3, 2013 — after following her in a vehicle from a Stillwater store to her residence — has been given a five-year prison term.
Daniel Alejandro “Alex” Hernandez, 19, was arrested in Stillwater three days after the hold-up, Perkins Police Chief Bob Ernst said.
As part of a plea bargain approved in court May 23, Hernandez must serve five years of probation on his release from prison. He has been in custody for 16 months, court records show.
Hernandez’s co-defendant, the alleged driver of the vehicle, former Perkins resident Gaige Michael Petty, 20, of Stillwater, remains free on $50,00 bail pending an Aug. 1 pre-trial hearing, court records show.
A Perkins woman told police that a vehicle had followed her from the Highway 33 and Highway 177 junction to her residence shortly before midnight on Jan. 31, 2013, the Perkins police chief wrote in an affidavit.
When the woman pulled into her driveway and got out of her car, she noticed a vehicle go past her driveway before a male got out and walked toward her at a fast pace, the affidavit said.
“He came at me with a gun, told me to give it to him,” said the Perkins woman, who added “she told him to take whatever he wanted because she thought she would be shot or killed,” the affidavit said.
She said that the male took her purse containing her wallet, I-phone, checkbook, keys, a Kindle and a small amount of cash, the affidavit said.
She said while she was being robbed, another male turned the vehicle around, the affidavit said. The robber got into the vehicle which sped off, the affidavit said.
The vehicle’s alleged driver, Petty, who was then 18, later told Perkins police “he felt forced to drive the vehicle during the robbery and even stated at one point that Hernandez had pointed the gun at him,” before the robbery, the affidavit said.
The Perkins woman had described the robber’s clothing, gun and vehicle that she said had “odd taillights,” the affidavit said.
An hour later, Payne County Sheriff’s Deputy Rockford Brown notified Perkins Police Officer T.J. Brewster on the radio “he was out with a vehicle matching the suspect vehicle description on Fairgrounds Road, north of 104th Street,” the affidavit said.
“Deputy Brown stated there were two males inside the vehicle with clothing that matched the description,” the affidavit said.
But when the Perkins woman was taken to the deputy’s location, “she could not definitely say they were the suspects,” the affidavit said.
The sheriff’s deputy said that the vehicle, a silver four-door Mazda, “was originally sitting stationary at the intersection of Highway 33 and Fairgrounds Road,” the affidavit said.
“On the edge of Fairgrounds Road at Highway 33, Officer Brewster located a leather drawstring with a tassel on it,” which the Perkins woman identified as part of her blouse, the affidavit said.
After police contacted the alleged driver through his mother, he agreed to come to the Perkins Police Department the following morning for an interview, the affidavit said.
Petty “stated he had picked up ‘Alex’ Hernandez at approximately 8 p.m. the previous night at the Lincoln Academy School,” the affidavit said.
He said while they were at a fast-food restaurant in Stillwater, Hernandez asked him if he wanted to go make some money, the affidavit alleged.
Asked how they were going to do that, “Hernandez pulled up the front of his shirt revealing a black in color pistol, and said, ‘Yeah, you are going with me,"” the affidavit alleged.
Petty said that he was driving when they went to the Walmart on Perkins Road in Stillwater and watched people walking out of the store, the affidavit alleged.
He said “a female came out of Walmart carrying a ‘big bag’ and Hernandez told him to follow her,” as she got into her vehicle — which they followed all the way to Perkins, the affidavit alleged.
Petty said that as the woman pulled into her driveway, Hernandez told him to stop, the affidavit alleged. He said Hernandez was wearing a black ski-mask at the time of the robbery, the affidavit alleged.
He said when they left her neighborhood, they turned south onto Main Street in Perkins and stopped at the light at Main Street and Highway 33 where Hernandez threw the black gun out of the window into the ditch, the affidavit alleged.
Petty said that Hernandez wanted to go to a friend’s apartment at the Sterling Park Apartments in Perkins “until everything calmed down,” the affidavit alleged.
Petty said “when they arrived at the apartments, they got rid of the purse by placing it behind a shed,” the affidavit alleged. He said “Hernandez said he got the cell phone from the purse and approximately $20,” the affidavit alleged.
Before they left the apartments, the stolen cell phone was hidden in the engine compartment of his vehicle, Petty told police, the affidavit alleged.
When he began hearing a very loud noise coming from his engine compartment, Petty turned onto Fairgrounds Road from Highway 33 to find out what was wrong, the affidavit alleged.
Petty said that he and Hernandez “found the stolen cell phone had fallen into the fan on the vehicle causing lots of noise,” the affidavit alleged.
Petty said Hernandez said “the phone was broken and threw it into the ditch,” the affidavit alleged. When a deputy stopped them to ask why they were stopped on the roadway, Petty said that he was having engine problems, the affidavit alleged.
Traveling north on Fairgrounds Road, the two were stopped by a deputy for a taillight being out, the affidavit said.
Petty said after that traffic stop, he took Hernandez back to Stillwater and dropped him off at a residence, the affidavit alleged.
Subsequently, two Perkins police officers recovered a black metal air soft pistol in the northwest ditch at Highway 33 and Main Street near Sonic, the affidavit said.
“Officers then recovered the purse behind a shed at the Sterling Park Apartments,” which the Perkins woman identified as hers, the affidavit said.
“At Fairgrounds Road and Highway 33, I recovered a black in color I-phone in the northeast ditch,” the Perkins police chief wrote in his affidavit.
The woman identified the phone as hers and said the recovered air soft pistol appeared to be the one used to rob her, the affidavit said.
***
