Thursday, July 25, 2002 | 9:35 a.m.
Two men accused of carjacking and robbing four Las Vegas residents at gunpoint will serve from five years to life in prison after entering plea agreements this week.
Kareem Marquez Wesley, 21, and Jeffrey Orlando Green, 20, each pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree kidnapping and four counts of robbery with a deadly weapon.
Prosecutors said the case was striking in terms of the number of crimes committed and the terror imposed upon the victims.
Each of the men will receive a five-year to life sentence on the kidnapping charge in September. Green agreed to serve a concurrent 10 to 30-year sentence on his robbery counts, but District Judge Sally Loehrer will have some discretion when sentencing Wesley on his robbery counts.
Wesley could receive four to 30 years or 16 to 120 years for the robberies. Although the sentence will run concurrent to the life sentence, running them consecutively could influence the state parole board when he is eligible for parole on the kidnapping charge, said Deputy District Attorney Phil Brown.
The men are accused of accosting three men and a woman between Sept. 12, 2001, and Oct. 20, 2001, as they sat in either bank or apartment complex parking lots on the city's northwest side.
Two other suspects have not yet been identified and an investigation is ongoing.
In exchange for their guilty pleas, Brown agreed to drop a weapons enhancement on the kidnapping charge, which would have doubled the life sentence. He also agreed to dismiss a number of related charges.
In two of the cases, the men were forced to drive to multiple automated teller machines to withdraw money. In a third case, the victim was robbed of $1,000 cash and made to withdraw money from an ATM used in both prior robberies.
The woman, although carjacked, was not robbed because she wouldn't stop screaming and the robbers gave up, court documents show.
Brown said the men likely netted $2,000 during the robberies.
"The actions of these guys were pretty scary," Brown said. "The victims were ordinary people living their lives when they were carjacked at gunpoint and driven to the ATM machines. It would be scary for anyone."
"Their only saving grace was that they didn't kill anyone," Brown said of the defendants. "That doesn't excuse what they did, however, and they will have to pay the piper for that."
According to grand jury documents, one victim testified he was forced to make two ATM withdrawals -- one before midnight and one after. The defendants, he said, knew Bank of America has daily maximum withdrawal limits.
The man said he was pistol-whipped numerous times during the two hours he was with Green and Wesley. He was most horrified, however, when his assailants spotted a woman pulling up to an ATM they had just left at Cheyenne Avenue and Rainbow Boulevard.
"They start commenting 'That's a nice vehicle. It's a girl. She's got money. I bet she's got money,' " he testified. "I thought 'Oh, God. They're going to rob somebody else.' "
The man said he watched Green force his way into the woman's car and heard her begin to scream. Moments later, he said he heard Green yelling expletives at the woman, telling her to leave.
"He gets back in the car and he says 'I can't deal with that (expletive), man. She was just psycho. She was psycho, man,' " the man testified.
A short time later, the man said the robbers pulled into an apartment complex and left on foot.
"The one guy, the driver, said 'Man, you been cool. We're going to let you go,' " the man said. "They said 'You just lay there until we're out of sight and you're cool.' "
Another victim said he was carjacked by three men after dropping off a friend on North Rainbow Boulevard. As he was forced to drive from ATM to ATM, one of the men continually taunted him, he said.
"He was asking me 'Have you ever been shot before?' and this and that and a couple of the guys in the back were like 'Don't mess with him. He did everything we asked for, let him go,' " the victim said.
Green and Wesley were identified by the victims through photos. Their fingerprints were also found in the vehicles.
When asked if he was sure the right men had been identified, one victim responded "Well, you spend an hour with two guys right in your face, it's hard not to see them pretty well."
Neither man had any criminal history, Brown said. Green is an honorably discharged Army veteran and Wesley was a college student.
Defense attorney Greg Denue, who represents Wesley, said the plea agreement was fair.
"I blame the co-defendant for this," Denue said of the crime spree. "It was Jeff Green's idea, his plan, and Kareem just didn't say 'No.' "
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