Amy Hoover admitted her role Tuesday in five armed robberies of casino patrons and others and will go to prison for it. But because she’s agreed to testify against her co-defendants, including the father of her child born in jail, she won’t serve the 50 years she otherwise could have faced.
“She really, truly did run with a bad crowd,” Assistant Hamilton County Prosecutor Mark Piepmeier said after Hoover pleaded guilty to five counts of aggravated robbery.
Hoover, her boyfriend Kenyatta Erkins and Ugbe Ojile are charged with following patrons back from the Indiana riverboat casinos and robbing them.
Hoover was allowed to take a plea deal because, Piepmeier said, she will testify against Erkins and Ojile.
Hoover pleaded guilty before Common Pleas Court Judge Nadine Allen to five counts of aggravated robbery that could send her to prison for up to 50 years. Four other charges against her were dismissed as part of the plea deal.
Hoover, 25, of Colerain Township, will be sentenced June 1 and hopes to get as little time behind bars as possible.
“She’s definitely going to prison,” Piepmeier said.
She admitted she robbed:
A Hyde Park man of “several thousand dollars” Feb. 11, 2009, after he returned home from a casino. This victim was robbed twice by Erkins and Ojile, prosecutors said, but Hoover was only involved in one;
A man driving through Hamilton County, returning to his home in Fairborn, Ohio, after a July 10, 2009, night at the casinos. That man was robbed of his car;
A casino patron of $400 after he returned to his Bond Hill home Jan. 10, 2010;
A Colerain Township man of his ID after a night of gambling at the casino. That ID later was found on Ojile, Piepmeier said;
A Highland Heights woman who was a manager of a Springfield Township BP station. Hoover admitted she was involved in holding that woman hostage while others went to the store with the manager’s keys and security code. That netted the thieves $8,000 on Dec. 13, 2009.
Hoover, who cried throughout the guilty pleas, said her child born in jail while she was awaiting resolution of her charges, now lives with her mother in another state.
Erkins and Ojile are scheduled for a May 16 trial. Prosecutors say the group robbed casino patrons at least two dozen times including one many three times.
Source
