'No excuse': Man gets 30 years in fatal Antioch jewelry store robbery - East Bay Times
MARTINEZ — A 22-year-old man was sentenced to 30 years in state prison Thursday, as part of a plea deal in a murder case involving the 2014 robbery of Hardy Nix Jewelers in Antioch.
Before the sentence, defendant Trai Jones listened to a letter from the owner of the jewelry store, Mark Perez, who shot and killed Jones’ accomplice, David Carter, 20, after the two walked into the jewelry store and Jones fired shots. A letter from Carter’s adoptive mother, in which she asked for sympathy for Jones, was also read into the record.
In exchange for the 30-year sentence, Jones pleaded guilty to robbery and assault charges. Prosecutors dropped a murder charge against him, which sought to hold him liable for Carter’s death under the provocative act theory, meaning he was alleged to have forced Perez to lawfully defend himself with lethal force.
The April 11, 2014, robbery changed a lot of lives. A woman who was there buying rings with her husband and daughter was shot in the back, and still has the bullet lodged in her. Carter died, and two of his accomplices — Jones and Antioch resident Robert Simmons, 29 — ended up going to prison. Perez wrote the experience left him and his wife badly traumatized.
“For years we were regularly reminded of that awful day. … We are hoping after today we can finally put this nightmare behind us that changed our lives,” Mark and his wife, Leslie Perez, wrote in a letter to the court. They said they sold the store and moved out of the area because the memories were too much to bear.
Carter’s adoptive mother also wrote a letter to the court, which said the robbery was “out of character” for Carter, who she said spent time in foster care as a child.
“As a family we do not blame Trai Jones for David’s death,” she wrote. “Both David and Trai were young and foolish.”
The jewelry store owners, though, wrote in their letter they saw “no excuse” for Jones coming into the store shooting, and asked for the maximum allowable sentence.
“Mr. Perez says it best, ‘This level of violence has no excuse.’ The physical and emotional trauma that the victims suffered in this case cannot be measured in time or words,” prosecutor Alison Chandler said in a written statement. “After four long years and the plea and sentence today, hopefully, the families can finally feel closure and begin to heal.”
Simmons, the suspected driver, took a 15-year state prison term as part of a plea deal last year.
