Man Sentenced to Prison for String of Robberies

District Attorney Jill Ravitch has announced that defendant Hugo Eduardo Lopez-Ferreira, 24, of Petaluma, was sentenced today to four years state prison for two counts of robbery and one count of attempted robbery for offenses committed between April 21 and April 24, 2018 of this year.

Lopez-Ferreira began his crime spree early in the morning on April 21, 2018 when he approached a woman waiting for an Uber on Mendocino Avenue in Santa Rosa and said something she did not understand. Lopez-Ferreira then lifted his shirt exposing a black handle to a handgun tucked in his waistband. Lopez-Ferreira took the woman’s purse from her shoulder and fled towards a black Honda.

Early the next morning in Rohnert Park Lopez-Ferreira approached a woman seated in a parked vehicle at an apartment complex. He walked to the driver’s side window with a black handgun in his hand and demanded her purse. The woman gave up her purse which contained her phone and other personal items. Lopez-Ferreira fled in a burgundy colored sedan.

Two days later Lopez-Ferreira struck again and approached a man who had just parked his vehicle at another apartment complex in Rohnert Park. Lopez-Ferreira held up a gun to the driver’s side window and told the man to “give me it”. The man locked his car doors and refused to give anything to Lopez-Ferreira. Lopez-Ferreira ran to a parked burgundy colored sedan and drove away, striking two parked vehicles as he fled the parking lot.

Later that day detectives from the Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety put out a press release asking for assistance from the public in locating Lopez-Ferreira. That afternoon an employee at AutoZone in Rohnert Park alerted police that he just saw a man matching Lopez-Ferreira’s description attempting to pull dents out of a burgundy colored Honda. The employee gave a description of the vehicle, the license plate number, and direction of travel as the Honda drove away. Rohnert Park Public Safety officers soon located the burgundy Honda traveling northbound on Redwood Drive near the Shell gas station. Officers initiated a traffic stop and Lopez-Ferreira, along with two females, were inside the Honda. A search of the Honda revealed some of the stolen items from the robberies as well as three replica handguns. Lopez-Ferreira was later identified by the victims of the robberies.

The case was prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Thomas Gotshall. The Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety along with the Santa Rosa Police Department headed the investigation.