Plea Hearing for Men Arrested in $37 Million Fremont Computer-Chip Heist Moved to May 27

The plea hearing for five men arrested and has been scheduled for May 27.

The arrestees—Jesus Meraz Jr., 25, San Jose; Dylan Catayas Lee, 32, San Jose; Rolando McKay Secreto, 38, San Jose; Leonard Abriam, 31, San Jose; and Pierre Ramos, 28, Union City—made a brief appearance Wednesday afternoon at the Fremont Hall of Justice. The men entered the courtroom dressed in yellow prison scrubs and were asked to turn their backs toward the audience.

Each defendant is being represented by a different attorney. The attorneys asked for more time in order to obtain and review California Deputy Attorney General Ralph Sivilla’s evidence, which Sivilla said will be available within two weeks. Sivilla is serving as prosecutor on the case.

The suspects have been charged with armed robbery, kidnapping for robbery and excessive taking of property for their alleged involvement in a robbery at a Unigen, Inc. computer chip warehouse at 45388 Warm Springs Blvd., Fremont.

If convicted, the suspects could face life in prison for the kidnapping-for-robbery charge alone, Sivilla said.

According to charges filed against them, the men—along with several others who are still at large—allegedly bound five Unigen employees at gun-point and then forced them to a back room on Feb. 27. The masked robbers loaded the chips into a large truck and drove away. The employees were not injured and were able to remove their restraints.

At least eight more suspects are still at large, Sivilla said Wednesday.

According to Deputy District Attorney Jeff Rosen, the stolen chips, valued at $37 million, were intended for sale in Asia. But through the efforts of the Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team (REACT), a Silicon Valley task force, and the Department of Homeland Security, 98 percent of the chips have been recovered, some locally and some overseas, REACT Director Michael Sterner said.

The computer chips, manufactured by Intel, were delivered to Unigen so that they could be assembled onto a circuit board and then sent to , the intended recipient and end user. According to Sterner, the chips were not for personal computer use.

Sterner said the case was unique for a number of reasons, among them the sheer size of the robbery and because computer chip robberies have waned since the mid-1990s.

The arrests were made over a period of time, with the last arrest occurring on April 7.

Several agencies assisted REACT in the investigation, among them the FBI, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California.

Mountain View Patch editor Claudia Cruz and Bay City News Service contributed to this report.