Opening statements began Tuesday in the robbery trial of an Arizona man accused of targeting exotic dancers in 2020, three years before he is alleged to have helped carry out a horrific plot to kidnap and murder one of the women.
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Cudjoe Young, 30, will be tried on charges of armed robbery and attempted armed robbery after, authorities said, he held up Mercedes Vega at gunpoint and sought to rob a second dancer weeks later in the Phoenix area.
Young faces separate charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping, arson, theft, conspiracy and armed robbery with a deadly weapon connected to Vega’s killing in 2023.
He pleaded not guilty in both cases. Two other men, Jared Gray and Sencere Hayes, were indicted in Vega’s murder and pleaded not guilty.
The robbery trial comes after delays stalled the case for years and Young repeatedly reversed course on plea agreements offered by prosecutors, including one that would have reduced his robbery charges to a minor felony with little prison time.
Authorities have accused the men of killing Vega to prevent her from cooperating with authorities. Vega’s mother, Erika Pillsbury, has said she believes her death is linked to the robbery: Vega was scheduled to testify the day she was found beaten, shot and burned in the back seat of an abandoned car on an interstate west of Phoenix.
Vega, 22, was robbed before dawn Oct. 12, 2020, after she finished a shift at the Phoenix club where she worked. A masked, armed man approached her outside her apartment building with his gun drawn and took her car keys and wallet and a bag containing hundreds of dollars, an incident report shows.
After he unlocked her phone, the man stole more money through a cash transfer app, according to the report.
A month later, a masked, armed man approached a second dancer from the club in the garage of that woman’s apartment building after work. When another car appeared, the gunman ran, according to the records.
A third woman from the club told NBC News that she believes the same masked man targeted her outside her aunt’s Phoenix-area condo unit in 2019. She’d just finished a shift, she said, when the man appeared outside the home and pointed a gun in her face, she said.
The man took her bag and fled, police records show, and she contacted authorities immediately after. A spokesman for the Scottsdale Police Department said investigators found no evidence linking that assailant to the other crimes.
Young was arrested and charged with the 2020 robberies in December of that year. He posted a bond of nearly $50,000 and was released.
Three years later, on April 16, 2023, Vega was assaulted and kidnapped in the parking garage of her Tempe apartment building, authorities have said. She was found dead hours later on Interstate 10 after a motorist dialed 911 and reported seeing flames from the Chevrolet Malibu that authorities found her body in.
The Maricopa County medical examiner determined that Vega died from conflagration, blunt force and ballistic injuries.
Young was charged in Vega’s murder in July. Authorities linked him to the car Vega’s body was found in and suggested he may have bought plane tickets for his co-defendants from Tennessee to Arizona, according to a probable cause statement.
Gray and Hayes were indicted in Vega’s murder after authorities linked them to the crime through fingerprints, the statement said.
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