Organized crime indictment made public

By BRAD KELLAR
Herald-Banner Staff

July 11, 2009 01:21 am

— A fourth Greenville man has been charged with engaging in organized crime as part of a local street gang.
An engaging in organized criminal activity indictment, filed against Aaron Zachary Stevenson 23, was unsealed Friday during a hearing in the 196th District Court. The charge was issued sealed by the Hunt County grand jury in May, pending Stevenson’s arrest and arraignment on the indictment.
Stevenson was scheduled to be arraigned Friday, although court records indicated he had recently bonded out of jail on the charge.
Stevenson had been facing a trial starting Monday on a previous charge of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon, although the trial has been reset.
Stevenson was among four people indicted earlier this year in connection with an alleged home invasion robbery in Greenville in October of last year. He has pleaded not guilty.
All four of those named in the aggravated robbery indictment have also been indicted for engaging in organized criminal activity.
Aaron Stevenson, Jason Eugene Stevenson, Derrick OBryan Jackson and Martin Rioz Jr., all of Greenville, were each indicted in February on one count of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon.
According to a criminal complaint filed by the Greenville Police Department, the four men knocked on the door of a residence in the 2100 block of Bourland Street shortly after 8 p.m. on Oct. 27, 2008. When the homeowner opened the door, the four were reported to have rushed into the house, with Jackson and Jason Stevenson brandishing pistols. Aaron Stevenson was alleged to have carried a pistol-grip shotgun. The four suspects were said in the complaint to have demanded money and/or items of property from the residents inside the home, but fled on foot after one of the victims called police. No one was reported injured during the offense.
Jason Stevenson was convicted by a jury May 20 and sentenced to seven years in prison on a charge of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon involving the alleged robbery.
The engaging in organized criminal activity indictments allege the four defendants acted and conspired together in the home invasion with the, “intent to establish, maintain and/or participate in a combination and in the profits of a combination and/or as a member of a criminal street gang.”
Both the aggravated robbery and engaging in organized criminal activity indictments are first degree felonies, each punishable by a maximum sentence of from five to 99 years to life in prison and an optional fine of up to $10,000.