Man sentenced to prison for attacking ‘easy target’ Asian woman

SAN LEANDRO, California. – An East Bay man was sentenced to prison after an Asian woman was robbed “because Asians are easy targets who don’t fight back,” federal prosecutors said.

Freddie Lee Davis III, 27, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft and was sentenced Thursday to two years in federal prison. His co-defendant, Sene Malepay, 27, pleaded guilty to the same charges and has not yet been sentenced, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Northern California said Friday.

In the plea agreement, Malepay said she and three others discussed “going to Chinatown to rob Asian women with purses or jewelry” on June 17, 2021, and ended up at a Costco in San Leandro, prosecutors said.

Two members of the group said they “prefer to rob Asians because they think they have more money and because Asians are easy targets who don’t fight back,” prosecutors said, citing Malepeai’s plea agreement.

The robbery took place in the Costco parking lot as the victim left the store and headed to his car. As a black Honda drove nearby, the man reached out and snatched her purse from the moving car, prosecutors said.

The woman held on to her purse and was dragged through several cars. As the car sped off, the woman fell to the ground and was injured. Surveillance cameras showed the car’s license plate was registered to Davis, prosecutors said.

After the robbery, the vehicle’s occupants divided up the stolen items, including cash, credit cards, a checkbook and two cellphones, prosecutors said, Malepeai admitted.

Davis pleaded guilty Aug. 1 to receiving a stolen MasterCard credit card from a woman. Prosecutors said he and Malepeai used it to buy merchandise at a shoe store in San Leandro and make other fraudulent purchases.

In addition to the prison sentence, Davis was ordered to pay restitution in an amount to be determined and serve three years of supervised release upon his release from prison, prosecutors said.