LA's 'Walking Crime Spree' Sentenced To Prison For Armed Robberies: Authorities

LOS ANGELES — A convicted murderer was sentenced Monday to 27 years in federal prison after robbing and trying to rob 10 South Bay and South Los Angeles businesses at gunpoint during a five-day crime spree in 2020, according to authorities.

Justin Washington, 34, of Gardena, pleaded guilty in October 2023 to 10 counts of interference with commerce by robbery and one count of brandishing a firearm during a violent crime, authorities said. He must pay $9,019 in restitution and a special assessment of $1,100, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

“Mr. Washington's short-lived criminal rampage terrorized small businesses and undoubtedly left his victims with lasting trauma,” Donald Alway, assistant director in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office, said in a news release.

Washington was released in September 2020 from state prison from a 10-year term for armed robbery and possession of a deadly weapon, according to the department.

Less than two months after his release, he murdered a rival gang member, authorities said, adding he was later convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 75 years to life in state prison.

Washington was taken into custody in December 2020 but not before he went on a robbery spree from Nov. 30 to Dec. 4, starting at a Gardena grocery store he robbed on both Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, according to the department. He then robbed a 7-Eleven and a donut shop and tried to rob a veterinarian’s office, all in Gardena, authorities said. He robbed a donut shop in Torrance, and in South Los Angeles he robbed a cellphone store, a dry cleaner, two more donut shops and a Baskin-Robbins, according to the department.

Washington hit a worker in the head at the Torrance donut shop and bound the employee’s hands, authorities said, and he pistol-whipped a worker at the donut shop in South Los Angeles, where he tried to fire his gun.

“This defendant was a walking crime spree and fully deserving of a major federal prison sentence,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in the news release.

Washington was in state custody from December 2020 until July 2023 and had recently been in federal custody, according to the department. Twenty years of his federal sentence is set to run consecutive to his state murder sentence, authorities said.