Man charged in murder of Arizona dancer is found guilty of robbing her 3 years before her killing - BERITAJA

A assemblage convicted an Arizona man Wednesday successful the gunpoint robbery of an exotic dancer who was killed 3 years later successful a execution crippled that officials opportunity he carried retired pinch 2 others.

Cudjoe Young, 30, was recovered blameworthy of equipped robbery and attempted equipped robbery successful relationship pinch abstracted crimes targeting 2 women, including Mercedes Vega, successful 2020, according to tribunal records.

Neither the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, which tried Young, nor his attorney, Candice Shoemaker, instantly responded to requests for remark Wednesday evening.

Young besides faces abstracted charges of murder, kidnapping, arson, theft, conspiracy and equipped robbery pinch a deadly limb connected to Vega’s sidesplitting successful 2023. Young and his alleged accomplices, Jared Gray and Sencere Hayes, person pleaded not guilty.

Vega, 22, was recovered burned, changeable and pinch blunt unit injuries successful an abandoned car connected an interstate westbound of Phoenix connected April 17, 2023.

Prosecutors person alleged that the men killed Vega to forestall her from cooperating pinch authorities aliases arsenic retaliation for cooperating. Vega’s mother has said her girl was scheduled to attest successful the robbery lawsuit the time she was recovered dead.

Vega was robbed by a masked, equipped man extracurricular her Phoenix flat building aft finishing a late-night displacement astatine a section nine connected Oct. 12, 2020, constabulary records show. A masked, equipped man tried to rob a 2nd dancer from the nine successful that woman’s Phoenix-area parking car shed weeks later, but fled aft a car appeared, authorities person said.

Photographs of Mercedes Vega connected a wall successful her parents' location successful San Tan Valley, Ariz. past year. Megan Mendoza / The Republic/USA Today Network via Imagn

A 3rd female from the nine told Beritaja that she believes the aforesaid masked man targeted her extracurricular her aunt’s Phoenix-area condo portion successful 2019. She’d conscionable vanished a shift, she said, erstwhile the man appeared extracurricular the home, pointed a weapon successful her look and took her belongings.

A spokesperson for the Scottsdale Police Department, which investigated that robbery, said location was nary grounds to nexus it to the different incidents.

In the robbery trial, the charismatic pointed to compartment building information and different integer grounds that she said linked Young to the crimes. Young’s lawyer described immoderate of that grounds arsenic unreliable and said her customer was not “the feline pinch the gun.”