After pleading guilty for his participation in the 2022 smash-and-grab robbery of Luxury Jewels of Beverly Hills, Jimmy Lee Vernon III was sentenced to 80 months in federal prison last week and must also pay $2,674,600 in restitution fees.
In a statement, United States Attorney Martin Estrada said, “This defendant took part in a blatant assault on a store operating in daylight hours, believing he could rob and intimidate others with impunity. Now, he will serve a lengthy sentence in federal prison. Our office and our law enforcement partners will not tolerate these sorts of brazen attacks on our community.”
Vernon was charged along with two other adults and one minor. The indictment describes the group driving together in three different vehicles from Long Beach to Beverly Hills before the robbery. Vernon’s cell phone fell out of his sweatpants pocket while he was committing the robbery and left it behind. According to an affidavit previously filed in this case, the phone was later recovered by law enforcement.
The group made off with approximately 19 bracelets, seven pairs of earrings, four necklaces, a pair of obelisks, eight rings and 20 watches, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
After the robbery, the group ran out of the store and left behind a vehicle which had been reported stolen in Long Beach four days before the robbery. According to court documents, one of Vernon’s accomplices posted various pictures of large stacks of money and a message praising his “robbery gang,” just two days after the robbery.
Peter Sedghi, the CEO of Luxury Jewels of Beverly Hills, described the events on the day of the robbery for the Courier. “I was sitting in my office, and we have special glass.” He described loud sounds coming from the robbery, “sledgehammers hitting the glass, it sounded like gunshots. I hit the burglar alarm, I told my employees to hit the floor, and I grabbed my gun. One of my employees that sits up front told me, ‘Pete, shoot them! Pete, shoot them!’ They saw me with the gun and started running.”
Vernon faced a statutory maximum of 20 years in federal prison. Deshon Bell, a co-defendant, pleaded guilty in December 2023 to one count of Hobbs Act Robbery and is serving a federal prison sentence of one year and one day. Another co-defendant, Ladell Tharpe, pleaded guilty on Sept. 30 to one count of Hobbs Act robbery and will have a sentencing hearing on Jan. 6, 2025.
Both the FBI and the Beverly Hills Police Department investigated the robbery. Assistant United States Attorneys Kevin J. Butler of the Violent and Organized Crime Section and Kevin B. Reidy of the Major Frauds Section prosecuted the case.
Previously, a Beverly Hills Police Department spokesman told the Courier, “If you commit a crime in the city of Beverly Hills, we are going to exhaust all leads until we have you in custody and then we will make sure you answer up to charges either on the state or federal level.” He then added, “Once we started working with our federal partners, the decision was made to seek federal charges. In the past we have had great results on the federal level.”
For his part, Sedghi said that he wanted more time in jail for the robbers. “I think he should have gotten more time. A lot more, for what they did to us not just financially but mentally. He caused emotional damage to my employees.”
The store is open now, but Sedghi says after the robbery they had to close for more than a month. “We had to shut down for a while, do inventory, fix broken glass, the windows. It was tough in the beginning.”
