A gun once registered to Christopher Dorner, the notorious former Los Angeles police officer who killed four people, including two law enforcement officers, was found in the Los Angeles Airbnb of a couple of alleged “crime tourists,” federal prosecutors say.
The two South American citizens are accused of stealing a watch worth $1 million at gunpoint last week in the courtyard of the Beverly Wilshire hotel.
Was Dorner's gun used to carry out the alleged crime?
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jena MacCabe would not confirm that the gun was used in the alleged robbery, KCAL reported, but an affidavit says it was the only weapon found in connection with the arrests.
“We're still trying to figure it out,” MacCabe said.
Prosecutors say the suspects assaulted the victim in front of his wife and 5-year-old twin daughters at the luxury Beverly Hills hotel. One of them held a gun while the other took the man's luxury watch, a Patek Philippe, and then fled in a car with stolen license plates, according to the affidavit.
Street cameras near Beverly Wilshire captured the Aug. 7 armed robbery of a man in front of his family.
(United States District Court)
Jamer Mauricio Sepulveda Salazar, 21, of Columbia, is charged with two felony counts related to armed robbery. Jesus Eduardo Padron Rojas, 19, of Venezuela, is charged with conspiracy to commit robbery.
Sepulveda said the crew had been conducting surveillance for two weeks in an attempt to steal a Patek Phillipe watch, the complaint says, and both men admitted their involvement in the theft of a $30,000 Rolex in Beverly Hills two days before the theft of the $1 million watch.
Investigators found a handgun in Padron’s pillowcase at the suspects’ Airbnb on Browning Boulevard in Los Angeles. The gun was registered to Dorner, a former officer who attacked LAPD officers he claimed had harmed him.
In 2013, Dorner went on a nine-day rampage killing four people — two police officers, the daughter of a former LAPD captain and her fiancé — and wounding three others. He died in a cabin in Big Bear that caught fire after a shootout with authorities.
MacCabe said investigators were “trying to figure out how this long-ago gun somehow came into his possession and was linked to this series of violent armed robberies.”
