Published: October 14, 2009 11:43 pm      

Prison sentence for robbery, organized crime charges

A Greenville man has been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to charges of robbery and organized crime.

Martin Rioz Jr., 21, entered the guilty pleas during hearings Wednesday morning in the 196th District Court. Under a plea bargain arrangement, Rioz was sentenced to six years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice-Institutional Division on each charge, with the sentences to run concurrently.

Martin Rioz Jr. was among four people indicted earlier this year in connection with an alleged home invasion robbery in Greenville in October of last year. Rioz, Jason Eugene Stevenson, Derrick OBryan Jackson and Aaron Zachary Stevenson, all of Greenville, were each indicted on one count of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon and engaging in organized criminal activity.

Rioz pleaded guilty Wednesday to the organized crime indictment and a lesser included charge of robbery.

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.

The engaging in organized criminal activity indictments allege Rioz and the three other 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.”