U.S. District Sim Lake Judge sentenced a 31-year-old Houston woman to 96 months in prison after she was convicted in connection with a series of home invasions leading to the federal kidnapping charges.
Chakevia Roberts pleaded guilty in August 2022, admitting she was the look-out and getaway driver during the crime spree that took place across the city, according to a March 21 U.S. Department of Justice news release. She was the last of three people to be convicted in the case, and faces five years of supervised release once she is free.
“One of the defendants pepper sprayed a child, in front of the child’s mother, in the mother and child’s own home. The victims are still traumatized, years later,” U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani said in the release. “My office will not tolerate this vile conduct, and so the two men who decided to violate the sanctity of a home will now face justice’s long arm and spend decades in prison. The hope is that this might allow the victims to finally sleep a little easier knowing their perpetrators are off the streets.”
Timothy Morant, 55, and Alvin Woods, 45, both also of Houston, have also been sentenced in the case to 327 and 240 months in federal prison, respectively, according to the release. In October of 2019, Morant and Woods entered a multi-million dollar home in Sugar Land while the homeowners were present, tying up several family members with zip ties, holding them at gunpoint and demanding they open safes.
During the kidnapping, Morant conversed with Roberts on an open cell phone line, who was waiting outside as the look-out and get-away driver, the release reported. After making their getaway, the three then split the money and property amongst themselves.
Authorities took all three suspects into custody in Houston in June 2020, after they attacked another family, according to the release. Over the course of the investigation, authorities seized drugs that included a 49-pound shipment of methamphetamine that was being transported into Washington state from California in boxes meant for home goods.
The probe led to the seizure of 24 weapons, roughly $ 778,000 in cash, 35,000 suspected fentanyl tablets, 15 pounds of heroin, about 143 pounds of methamphetamine and some15 pounds of heroin, the release said.
At Morant’s hearing, the judge branded him one of the most dangerous people he had seen before him in all of his years on the bench and called attention to the fact he had been convicted of the same crime twice before. In 1989, he served 13 years of a 42-year sentence in state prison, and in 2003, he was again convicted of the same crimes and sentenced to 25 years, only to be released in 2018. The federal prison system does not offer parole, the release reported.