A 19-year-old from Oakland was charged last week with five felonies from four different cases in Berkeley that took place over just six weeks this fall.
In the days that followed those charges, Kenthol Fenceroy Jr. took a plea deal and entered no contest to a single count of grand theft from a person. The rest of the charges were dismissed and Fenceroy was released on bail. He is set to return to court in January for sentencing.
Last week, the University of California Police Department announced Fenceroy’s arrest in connection with four felony cases: a violent laptop robbery at the Crossroads Student Dining Hall, a laptop theft from a student on the Clark Kerr Campus, a laptop theft from a customer at Alchemy Collective cafe in South Berkeley, and felony evasion from city police in late November. The crimes took place between Oct. 17 and Nov. 28, according to county records online.
In a Dec. 6 statement, UCPD said detectives from its agency and the Berkeley Police Department arrested Fenceroy on Nov. 30 at about 1:15 p.m. The location and circumstances of Fenceroy’s arrest were not provided.
UCPD said, of the Crossroads incident, that an 18-year-old student was punched in the face Oct. 17 while trying to keep a pair of robbers from taking her laptop. The young woman was sitting near Peet’s Coffee at the dining hall, at 2415 Bowditch St., at 4 p.m. when two young men approached her and her friends as she worked on her gold-colored MacBook laptop.
“One of the suspects grabbed the victim’s laptop,” said UCPD in a previous statement. “The victim fought back and was punched in the face by the suspect. The suspect fled with her laptop.”
The next incident UCPD tied to Fenceroy took place Nov. 8 on the Clark Kerr Campus at about 7:10 p.m. UCPD said an 18-year-old student was trying to open the door to her building when someone came up behind her and grabbed her laptop bag from her shoulder. The robber ran off and got into a waiting car to flee the area.
The Nov. 13 case, in the 1700 block of Alcatraz Avenue, involved a young man who grabbed a laptop from a customer at a table outside Alchemy Collective at about 3:10 p.m., according to unconfirmed scanner traffic reviewed by Berkeleyside. The robber jumped into a sedan and fled the area.
No information was immediately available about the felony evasion incident Nov. 28, or a misdemeanor allegation Nov. 29 related to the receipt of stolen property. Both took place in the city of Berkeley. Berkeleyside has asked BPD for information about those cases, and requested court papers from the Alameda County district attorney’s office. This story will be updated if additional detail is provided.
According to county online records, Fenceroy was charged Dec. 4 with five felonies and a misdemeanor by the Alameda County district attorney’s office. The next day, he entered not guilty pleas in connection with all the charges.
Then, two days later, Dec. 7, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office said Fenceroy withdrew his plea, and pled no contest to one count of grand theft from a person, which is a felony. He was found guilty of that charge.
Fenceroy initially was held on $205,000 bail, but has since been released. He is scheduled to return to court Jan. 23 for a sentencing hearing at the René C. Davidson Courthouse in Oakland.
