Newly-filed court papers in a million-dollar armored car warehouse heist in Santa Rosa last year allege the robbers had help from inside.
Part of the deal with ninja skills, superhero skills, and paramilitary skills is that they’re supposed to be used for good.
Save a village? Nice. Rappel down a cliff and rescue a stranded climber? Awesome. Liberate enslaved and oppressed people? Gold star.
If you don’t do good with your powers? Well, you’re a bad guy. And you have earned whatever awful fate awaits bad guys like you.
It’s doubtful that supposed former Blackwater paramilitary sniper Monico Dominguez needed any more bad guy cred. But the 39-year-old stands accused of playing a key role in an armored car warehouse heist in Santa Rosa last year, which newly-filed court papers now allege was an inside job.
Last August, masked gunmen with assault rifles snuck into a Garda Cash Logistics warehouse in Santa Rosa behind an armored car, tied up terrified workers, and made off with nearly $1 million in cash.
A $100,000 reward was offered in the case, which went publicly unsolved for a year. Police though, via an informant, had their sights on Dominguez and his crew. Not only that, the informant told police that a second robbery of the Garda warehouse was being planned.
Dominguez, his brother Juan Dominguez, and friend Shawn Geernaert were arrested last month in all-day raids in Santa Rosa and Cloverdale. In the raids, police seized dozens of items including an assault rifle, a camouflage sniper’s outfit and receipts indicating purchases of cars and other expensive items.
All three have pleaded not guilty to charges surrounding the case. Attorneys for co-defendant Geernaert filed papers Monday attempting to distance their client from the operation and requesting a separate trial.
The court papers allege 39-year-old Monico Dominguez told the police informant that he had worked in Iraq with notorious military contractors Blackwater, and that he had committed up to four previous armed robberies.
Secret recordings of Dominguez have him admitting to the first heist and planning to flee to Costa Rica after the second robbery, according to the papers.
No additional information was provided on the identity of any accomplice within Garda, nor on the potential recipient of the $100,000 reward. Garda had previously announced the $100,000 reward would not be paid out unless a conviction was secured.
Jesse Garnier is the editor and founder of SFBay. A Mission District native, he also teaches journalism as associate professor at San Francisco State University.
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