ST. LOUIS - United States District Court Judge Sarah E. Pitlyk accepted a plea of guilty from Paul Eric Latham on Oct. 14, 2021 for aiding and abetting a carjacking in January 2020.
A grand jury in the Eastern District of Missouri indicted Latham in May 2021 for aiding and abetting Antwan Jones in carjacking a victim in St. Louis the previous year. According to the plea agreement, Latham stopped his SUV next to the victim on Jan. 15, 2020. Latham waited in the SUV while his co-defendant approached the victim at gunpoint and demanded her purse. The carjacking victim surrendered her purse, which contained the keys to her car. Latham and his co-defendant drove around the area and used the victim’s key fob to locate her Mercedes Benz. Once they found the car parked nearby, Latham used the victim’s keys to drive her car away while his co-defendant drove away in Latham’s SUV.
Later that night, police tracked the victim’s phone to East St. Louis, Illinois. There, police discovered Latham’s SUV parked in the 1800 block of Boismenue Avenue with the victim’s purse still inside.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. Kourtney Bell and Ryan Finlen are handling the case for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
